Assistant Attorney General William Moschella informs the ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees of the administration’s use of potentially unconstitutional data mining and electronic surveillance programs after the 9/11 attacks. Moschella tells the lawmakers, “The president determined that it was necessary following September 11 to create an early-warning detection system” to prevent more attacks. One such program is the Novel Intelligence from Massive Data (NIMD) initiative (see After September 11, 2001). Moschella echoes the claims of National Security Agency director Michael Hayden and other administration officials, saying that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the government to obtain warrants to conduct domestic eavesdropping or wiretapping, “could not have provided the speed and agility required for the early-warning detection system.” [National Journal, 1/20/2006]Domestic Surveillance Began Before 9/11? - Though Bush officials eventually admit to beginning surveillance of US citizens only after the 9/11 attacks, that assertion is disputed by evidence suggesting that the domestic surveillance program began well before 9/11 (see Late 1999, February 27, 2000, December 2000, February 2001, February 2001, Spring 2001, July 2001, and Early 2002). Moschella informs the lawmakers of none of this.

Elliott Abrams, a special assistant to President George W. Bush on the National Security Council [NSC] and a well-known neoconservative and former Iran-Contra figure, is appointed to senior director for Near East and North African affairs within the NSC. Neoconservatives working at the Pentagon’s Near East South Asia (NESA) desk worked hard to get Abrams appointed. “The day he got (the appointment), they were whooping and hollering, ‘We got him in, we got him in,’” Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, tells Inter Press Service. Abrams, a controversial figure with close ties to Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, had been convicted of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, though he was later pardoned by George W. Bush’s father. [Insight, 12/28/2002; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003]

Elliott Abrams drafts a proposal, in which he argues that the United States should take de facto control of Iraqi oil fields. The proposal is not well-received by moderates in the Bush administration who question the legality of the proposal, and who argue “that only a puppet Iraqi government would acquiesce to US supervision of the oil fields and that one so slavish to US interests risks becoming untenable with Iraqis,” reports Insight Magazine. Such a move would also lend credence to suspicions that the invasion is motivated by oil interests, the critics add. [Insight, 12/28/2002] A similar recommendation was made in a paper published by the Heritage Foundation in late September (see September 25, 2002).

Two months after the September 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency report (see September 2002)—which found there was no conclusive evidence Iraq has chemical weapons—another secret document titled, “Iraq’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapon and Missile Program: Progress, Prospects, and Potential Vulnerabilities,” is completed. It also says in very clear terms that there is no solid proof that Iraq has chemical weapons. One passage from the report says, “No reliable information indicates whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where the country has or will establish its chemical agent production facility.” [US Department of Defense, n.d.; US News and World Report, 6/13/2003]

After examining more than 200 sites, UN weapons inspectors say that despite unfettered access to all Iraqi facilities, they have found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction or any programs aimed at developing such weapons. Several of the suspected weapons sites have been visited multiple times. Inspectors say that they have exhausted the leads provided by US intelligence and complain that Washington resists requests to provide them with more information. [BBC, 12/26/2001; BBC, 12/31/2001; Los Angeles Times, 12/31/2001; Guardian, 1/3/2002; Agence France-Presse, 12/29/2002; San Francisco Chronicle, 12/30/2002; Independent, 1/1/2003] The San Francisco Chronicle reports: “UN spokesmen in Baghdad admit they have largely exhausted their list of possible weapons sites and must make repeat visits to stay busy. They have asked the United States to provide intelligence to help identify new sites. Although the Bush administration recently said it would share some secrets with the United Nations, it appears to have turned over little so far.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 12/30/2002] And an unnamed weapons inspector tells the Los Angeles Times: “We haven’t found an iota of concealed material yet. Even private facilities which are not part of their state-run military industrial complex open up for us—like magic.… We can’t look for something which we don’t know about. If the United States wants us to find something, they should open their intelligence file and share it with us so that we know where to go for it.…. By being silent, we may create the false illusion that we did uncover something.… But I must say that if we were to publish a report now, we would have zilch to put in it.” [Los Angeles Times, 12/31/2001] The London Observer will report in early January, “Some of the inspectors are understood to be convinced that their mission has become a ‘set-up job’ and America will attack Iraq regardless of what they find.” [Observer, 1/5/2002]

John Brodman, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Energy Policy, tells the New York Times: “Our dependency on the Persian Gulf could take a slight dip before it goes up. But the basic geological fact of life is that 70 percent of the proven oil reserves are in the Middle East.” [New York Times, 12/26/2002]

The Research Unit for Political Economy (RUPE) publishes a special issue in their journal, Aspects of India’s Economy, analyzing the true motives behind the United States’ plan to invade Iraq. The purpose for this special publication, according to RUPE, is that India (like Pakistan) has been placed within the US geostrategic agenda for the Asian region. This has been done, among other things, by declaring India to be an important military ally, and by working for a US-India political/military axis against China. RUPE argues that this will heighten the military tension in a region occupied by nuclear powers. Therefore it is necessary to understand the true motives behind the US geopolitical agenda, exemplified in the current move against Iraq, before uncritically exposing one’s country to such risks. The report concludes that protecting the security of the US dollar is a primary motive behind the US’s planned invasion of Iraq. [Research Unit for Political Economy, 11/2002]

Parkhudin, a 26-year-old Afghan farmer and former soldier, is detained by US troops and held at Bagram Air Base for ten days. “They were punching me and kicking me when I talked to the other prisoners,” Parkhudin will later tell the New York Times. [New York Times, 5/24/2004] For eight days, he is held in isolation with his hands chained to the ceiling. “They were putting a mask over our heads, they were beating us in Bagram.” At one point, Parkhudin says, a soldier jumps on his back while he is laying on his stomach. [New York Times, 9/17/2004]

A further refinement of the rewards and punishments system is noticed by the Tipton Three. Under Gen. Geoffrey Miller, according to Shafiq Rasul, detainees are placed on four different levels depending on their degree of cooperation. Rasul is placed on Level 2 at the beginning, which means he may keep all his comfort items, including toothpaste, soap, and cups. At Level 1, the prisoner is also provided with a bottle of water. Level 4, the lowest tier, means, according to Asif Iqbal, “that you had all your comfort items removed, i.e. you had no soap, toothpaste, cup, towels, or blanket. You only had your clothes and had to sleep on the bare metal. You had to drink water with your hands.” [Rasul, Iqbal, and Ahmed, 7/26/2004 ] Ten months later, on a visit to Iraq, Miller will say to his local counterpart, “At Guantanamo Bay we learned that the prisoners have to earn every single thing that they have.” [BBC, 6/15/2004]

President Bush meets with his cabinet-level advisers to review progress with counterterrorism efforts. According to author James Risen, one participant in the meeting will later recall that “several senior officials, including [CIA Director] Tenet, [National Security Adviser] Rice, and [Deputy Defense Secretary] Wolfowitz, voiced concerns about the ability of al-Qaeda-style terrorists to recruit and gain support on a widespread basis in the Islamic world. Did the United States have a strategy to counter the growth potential of Islamic extremism? ‘The president dismissed them, saying that victory in Iraq would take care of that. After he said that, people just kind of sat down,’ the participant recalled.” [Risen, 2006, pp. 169-170]

The “Coalition of 184 Civic Institutions” is established. It is comprised of Haitian NGOs funded by USAID and/or the International Republican Institute (IRI), the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce, as well as several other groups. [Dollars and Sense, 9/7/2003] The coalition’s leader is Andre Apaid, a US citizen born to Haitian parents who is the head of Alpha Industries, “one of the oldest and largest assembly factories in Haiti.” His factories—located in Haiti’s free trade zones—produce textiles and assemble electronic products for several US companies, including Sperry/Unisys, IBM, Remington and Honeywell, some of which are used in US Government computers and US Defense Department sonar and radar equipment. According to a report by the National Labor Committee, Apaid’s businesses are known to have forced their employees to work 78-hour work-weeks at wages below the minimum rate. [Kernaghan, 1/1996; Haiti Progres, 11/12/2003; London Review of Books, 4/15/2004]

Forest Service officials inform employees working for the agency’s Content Analysis Team (CAT) that their jobs are being reviewed for possible outsourcing to the private sector. The employees are assured that the review would make them “a shining example for the rest of the agency of how successful federal employees can be.” Months later, CAT will undergo “direct conversion” instead, and all but the team’s top managers will lose their jobs to private sector outsourcing (see March 2003). [High Country News, 4/26/2004]

Alan Foley, the director of the CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center (WINPAC—see Shortly after February 12, 2002), calls his senior production managers into his office. He tells the gathered officers, who control the output of WINPAC’s analysts, “If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so.” According to Peter Eisner and Knut Royce, authors of The Italian Letter, “The directive was not quite an order to cook the books, but it was a strong suggestion that cherry-picking and slanting not only would be tolerated, but might even be rewarded.” Eisner and Royce will call WINPAC “sycophantic” supporters of the Bush plan to invade Iraq. Reporter Laura Rozen will call WINPAC “a secret cheerleading faction inside the CIA for the administration’s most stretched Iraq intelligence claims.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 376-377]

Wazir Muhammad, a 31-year-old farmer turned taxi driver from Khost province in Afghanistan, is detained and taken to Bagram. At the time of his arrest, he was working and had four passengers with him in his taxi. During his time at Bagram, he is interrogated, prohibited from talking to other prisoners, and deprived of sleep through the use of loudspeakers. He is later sent to Kandahar and eventually to Guantanamo (see Beginning of 2004). [Guardian, 6/23/2004]

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, writes to the State Department and White House to warn senior Bush administration officials that he believes the Iraq-Niger documents are forgeries (see January 12, 2003 and February 17, 2003) and should not be cited as evidence that Iraq is pursuing WMD (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003). ElBaradei will later say he never received a reply despite repeated follow-up calls to the White House, the State Department, and the National Security Council. State Department officials will later say they do not know if Secretary of State Colin Powell ever saw the letter. [Truthout (.org), 1/27/2006]

According to a report by the CIA’s inspector general, a cable sent this month reports that a detainee is left shackled and naked in a cold room. He is apparently left like this until he demonstrates co-operation, although it is unclear how long this takes. [Central Intelligence Agency, 5/7/2004, pp. 84-85 ]

Former Vice President Al Gore calls Fox News a virtual arm of the Republican Party. “Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game,” Gore says. “And pretty soon they’ll start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they’ve pushed into the zeitgeist” (see October 13, 2009). [New Yorker, 5/26/2003]

Critics argue that the Bush administration is attempting to use the inspections as a means of provoking resistance from Iraq so that Washington can claim it is in “further material breach.” The US would then cite this breach as justification for taking military action against Iraq. Critics also say that the administration’s agenda conflicts with the aims of the inspectors and that the US is undermining the inspectors’ work. [Mirror, 11/21/2002; Baltimore Sun, 12/3/2002; BBC, 12/19/2002]

The Bush administration attempts to delay a vote for the second time in nine days on a UN resolution extending Iraq’s authority to sell oil for the next six months. John D. Negroponte, the US ambassador to the United Nations, argues that the resolution should add approximately 40 additional items to a list of items requiring UN approval prior to import. [Washington Post, 12/4/2002; BBC, 12/4/2002]

The White House orders the CIA, the Defense Department, and the State Department to develop an aggressive plan for UN weapons inspectors that would require Iraqi scientists to appear for questioning. “An intense argument is under way… on almost all of the details of a protection program,” reports the New York Times. “Some American officials want the United Nations team to be aggressive in identifying scientists and demanding that they leave the country, perhaps without the scientists’ permission.” The UN would either issue subpoenas to the scientists or the UN would “lure” the scientists with offers of asylum in another country. If it is decided that subpoenas are to be used, Iraqi scientists would be required to “appear on a certain date and time at a place outside of Iraq… [and] Baghdad would be held responsible for seeing that they appear,” reports The Washington Post. Officials leak to the press that the Bush administration views the plan as the most likely way to provoke resistance from Baghdad. One official tells The Washington Post that if Iraqis “don’t produce those people, I would say that’s a demonstration of noncompliance and noncooperation.” The Washington Post reports that the inspections agencies, some allied governments, and UN officials are not pleased with the idea. They warn “that attempts to short-circuit the inspection process with a quickly conceived operation that could involve hundreds of Iraqis and their families could endanger lives while undermining both the inspections themselves and ongoing US intelligence operations in Iraq.” [New York Times, 12/6/2002; Washington Post, 12/12/2002; Washington Post, 12/13/2002] Hans Blix, who strongly disapproves of the recommendation, argues that the United Nations cannot abduct people against their will. “Do you really think any Iraqis are going to go for it?” he asks. “I mean how big is a family, do you take just the wife and children and parents? What about the extended family—the cousins? Do you leave them behind? And what if we’re stopped on the way to the airport?” [Guardian, 12/7/2002] The next day he reaffirms his position, saying, “We are in nobody’s pocket.… We are not going to abduct anybody and we are not serving as a defection agency.” [United Press International, 12/6/2002; London Times, 12/7/2002; New York Times, 12/7/2002] His view is “backed by most of the United Nations hierarchy and the State Department in Washington,” reports the New York Times. The Times quotes one US official, who disagrees with the idea: “Taking someone against their will is contrary to the whole United Nations concept. You’d fracture the UN consensus.” [New York Times, 12/6/2002] Iraqi General Amir Saadi argues that the proposal is problematic under international law and expresses concern that Hans Blix would be pressured into providing a copy of Iraq’s list of scientists to US intelligence. “This is a confidential list,” he says. “Will he make it public? Will he give it to other countries?” [Washington Post, 12/20/2002]

David Brant, the head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), learns disturbing information about detainees in US custody being abused at the Guantanamo detention facility. Brant is in charge of a team of NCIS agents working with the FBI at Guantanamo, called the Criminal Investigative Task Force. The task force’s job is to obtain incriminating information from the detainees for use in future trials or tribunals. Brant, an experienced law enforcement officer, finds what his task force agents tell him about interrogations at Guantanamo troubling. According to his agents, who have examined the interrogation logs, the military intelligence interrogators seem poorly trained and frustrated by their lack of success. Brant learns that the interrogators are engaging in ever-escalating levels of physical and psychological abuse, using tactics that Brant will later describe as “repugnant.” Much of his information comes from NCIS psychologist Michael Gelles, who has access to the Army’s top-secret interrogation logs at Guantanamo. [New Yorker, 2/27/2006; Vanity Fair, 5/2008] Gelles learned of the torture techniques being used at Guantanamo while reading through those logs for an internal study. He is taken aback at what author and reporter Charlie Savage will later call “a meticulously bureaucratic, minute-by-minute account of physical torments and degradation being inflicted on prisoners by American servicemen and women.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 178] Brant will later recall that Gelles “is phenomenal at unlocking the minds of everyone from child abusers to terrorists.” Therefore, when Gelles tells Brant that he finds the logs “shocking,” Brant takes it seriously. One of the most horrific cases is that of Mohamed al-Khatani (see December 17, 2002). [New Yorker, 2/27/2006; Vanity Fair, 5/2008] Brant says that NCIS will pull its interrogators out of Guantanamo if the abuses continue, and goes to the Navy’s general counsel, Alberto Mora, for help (see December 17-18, 2002). [Savage, 2007, pp. 178]

The World Church of the Creator (WCOTC—see May 1996 and After) announces that it is moving its headquarters to the small town of Riverton, Wyoming. Many residents and local organizations speak out against the virulently racist and white supremacist “church,” pointing to its pride in its Native American heritage. Thomas Kroenke, the “hastus primus” of the WCOTC, tells a reporter that if his organization had its way: “Well, you wouldn’t have anything, any races, except white races here. That’d be the only real difference—it would just be an all-white community.” Kroenke has lived in Riverton for two years after taking a job as a case worker at the nearby state prison farm; Kroenke lost the position after being named to a leadership position in the WCOTC. Kroenke describes himself as racist, saying: “And what I mean by that is, I felt an affinity for my own race, and a disaffinity… for all the other races. We are for the survival, preservation, and expansion of the white race.” Kroenke is the de facto leader of the organization, as church leader Matthew Hale is in jail for conspiring to kill a federal judge (see January 9, 2003). Fred Baehr, a painting contractor who lives in nearby Lander, says of the WCOTC: “We do not have a right to go and lynch them—we just don’t. But we do have a right to perhaps make them a little less comfortable. And frankly, when it comes to Nazis, I’m a little less concerned with their rights than I am with the rights of, shall I just say, decent people.” Tim Thorson of the Riverton Chamber of Commerce says the move has forced residents to examine their town’s own legacy of intolerance: “There was a time when businesses had signs in their stores saying ‘no Indians.’ That happened here.… Our focus is on trying to let the people that live here know that this is a safe place to be. And give them good reason to feel safe.” [Associated Press, 12/10/2002; National Public Radio, 2/10/2003]

Zakhim Shah, from the Afghan province of Khost, is captured by US forces. Shah is taken to Bagram Air Base where he is held for several weeks, including ten days in isolation. [New York Times, 6/21/2004] He and other prisoners, including Abdul Jabar, a 35-year-old taxi driver, are kept upstairs for two weeks naked, hooded, shackled, and with their hands chained to the ceiling day and night, according to the New York Times. Their only respite is when they are allowed to eat, pray, go to the bathroom, and for daily interrogation. They are kept awake by guards who shout or kick them to prevent them from sleeping. At one point, his exhaustion causes him to vomit. [New York Times, 5/24/2004; Guardian, 6/23/2004; New York Times, 9/17/2004] “The Americans tied our hands very tight, spit in our faces and threw stones at us,” he will later recall in an interview with the Times. He will be transferred to Guantanamo and eventually released on March 15, 2004. [New York Times, 6/21/2004]

National Security Council official Flynt Leverett, the head of Mideast affairs and the prime proponent of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians in that organization (see December 2001-January 2002 and April 2002), confronts his boss, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, over the Bush administration’s continued lack of progress on such negotiations, and over its repeated broken promises to Arab heads of state (see Spring 2002 and Summer 2002). Leverett has fielded a furious phone call from Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Marwan Muasher, who has just been told by Rice that all negotiations over the so-called “road map to peace” are at an end. “Do you have any idea how this has pulled the rug out from under us, from under me?” Muasher demanded. “I’m the one that has to go into Arab League meetings and get beat up and say, ‘No, there’s going to be a plan out by the end of the year.’ How can we ever trust you again?” Leverett demands an explanation from Rice. She tells him that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called for early elections, and he asked President Bush to put all negotiations on hold until after the elections. Leverett, unable to swallow his indignation any longer, retorts: “You told the whole world you were going to put this out before Christmas. Because one Israeli politician told you it’s going to make things politically difficult for him, you don’t put it out? Do you realize how hard that makes things for all our Arab partners?” Rice remains impassive. “If we put the road map out,” she says, “it will interfere with Israeli elections.” Leverett replies, “You are interfering with Israeli elections, just in another way.” Rice concludes the discussion, “Flynt, the decision has already been made.” Leverett, disgusted with the lack of sincerity towards the negotiations and with the impending Iraq invasion, will quit the NSC in March 2003. [Esquire, 10/18/2007]

Rumsfeld’s handwritten note at the bottom of the memo he signs: “However, I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” [Source: HBO]Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approves General Counsel William J. Haynes’ recommendations for interrogations methods (see November 27, 2002) and signs the action memo. [Associated Press, 6/23/2004] He adds in handwriting: “However, I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” In signing the memo, Rumsfeld adds for use at Guantanamo Bay 16 more aggressive interrogation procedures to the 17 methods that have long been approved as part of standard US military practice. [New York Times, 8/25/2004] The additional methods, like interrogation sessions of up to 20 hours at a time and the enforced shaving of heads and beards, are otherwise prohibited under US military doctrine. [MSNBC, 6/23/2004]

Bush administration officials launch what appears to be a concerted effort to discredit the inspections after press reports indicate that inspections are going well and that Iraq is cooperating. The Washington Post reports, “In speeches in London, Washington and Denver, Bush, Vice President Cheney and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz sought to increase pressure on Hussein in advance of a Sunday deadline for the Iraqi leader to declare his inventory of weapons and missiles.” The paper adds, “The coordinated speeches… seemed designed to preempt any positive sign from the UN inspection teams about Iraqi compliance and to set the stage for an early confrontation with Hussein.” [Washington Post, 12/3/2002]

In a speech to the Air National Guard Senior Leadership Conference in Denver, Vice President Dick Cheney calls Saddam Hussein’s government an “outlaw regime” and accuses the leader of “harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror,” asserting that his government “has had high-level contacts with al-Qaeda going back a decade and has provided training to al-Qaeda terrorists.” [White House, 12/2/2002; Washington Post, 12/3/2002] This latter comment appears to be based on a September 2002 briefing to Cheney’s staff by the Defense Department’s Office of Special Plans, which is aggressively pushing allegations of al-Qaeda-Iraq links (see September 16, 2002). That briefing contained a chart titled “Summary of Known Iraq-Al-Qaeda Contacts—1990-2002.” [Washington Post, 4/6/2007]

Iraq reiterates its claim that it has no weapons of mass destruction in the country, foreshadowing the content of its formal declaration, which is due in five days. Responding to the statement, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says, “Any country on the face of the earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” And President Bush says, “He [Saddam Hussein] says he won’t have weapons of mass destruction; he’s got them.” [BBC, 12/4/2002]

In a news briefing, Donald Rumsfeld says, “You can’t expect people to go into a country that is just enormous, with all that real estate and all that underground facilities and all of these people monitoring everything—everything anyone is doing—and expect them to engage in a discovery process and turn up something somebody is determined for them not to turn up. If you go back and look at the history of inspections in Iraq, the reality is that things have been found not by discovery, but through defectors… and you get the kind of information that means the game is up.” [US Department of Defense, 12/3/2002; United Press International, 12/4/2002]

An enhanced photo of the variola virus, which causes smallpox. [Source: University College London]New York Times reporter Judith Miller reports that the CIA is investigating an anonymous report that Iraq has obtained a virulent strain of smallpox from a Russian scientist. According to the anonymous informant, the smallpox may have come from Nelja N. Maltseva, a virologist who worked for over 30 years at the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow before her death in 2001. The CIA has briefed President Bush about the investigation, though, as Miller notes, “The attempt to verify the information is continuing.” Maltseva visited Iraq in 1972 and 1973, according to intelligence officials, and may have visited as recently as 1990. The facility where she worked housed what Russia has claimed was its entire national collection of some 120 strains of smallpox. Miller writes, “[S]ome experts fear that she may have provided the Iraqis with a version that could be resistant to vaccines and could be more easily transmitted as a biological weapon.” In response, the White House may decide that 500,000 military personnel and another 500,000 civilian medical workers should be vaccinated against smallpox, a disease officially eradicated in 1980. The White House says that despite promises made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia has not cooperated with US requests for information about its smallpox strains. “There is information we would like the Russians to share as a partner of ours,” says William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. “Because if there are strains that present a unique problem with respect to vaccines and treatment, it is in the interests of all freedom-loving people to have as much information as possible.” Recently declassified Soviet-era records show that in 1971, Maltseva was sent to Aralsk, a port city in what was then the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, to help stop an epidemic of smallpox. That outbreak was possibly the result of open-air tests of a Soviet smallpox strain. Some scientists worry that Maltseva may have shared the Aralsk strain with Iraqi scientists in 1990, according to administration sources. David Kelly, a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, says there was a “resurgence of interest” in smallpox vaccine in Iraq in 1990, “but we have never known why.” Both Maltseva’s daughter and her deputy in the Moscow laboratory deny that Maltseva ever went to Iraq. [New York Times, 12/3/2002]

During the bill signing of the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002, Bush says of Saddam Hussein: “One of my concerns is that in the past he has shot at our airplanes. Anybody who shoots at US airplanes or British airplanes is not somebody who looks like he’s interested in complying with disarmament.” He also chastises Saddam’s questioning US motives (see November 23, 2002). “He wrote letters, stinging rebukes, to what the UN did. He was very critical of the US and Britain. It didn’t appear to be somebody that was that anxious to comply, but we’ve just started the process.” [CNN, 12/4/2002; US President, 12/9/2002]

The White House calls for more aggressive inspections. White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says, “We want to make certain that they [the inspections] are aggressive enough to be able to ascertain the facts in the face of an adversary who in the past did everything in his power to hide the facts.” The White House recommends increasing the UN inspectors’ staff so that the two agencies can conduct multiple simultaneous inspections each day. [BBC, 12/4/2002]

A federal judge in New York rules that Jose Padilla, a US citizen who has been accused of being an al-Qaeda “dirty bomber,” has the right to meet with a lawyer (see June 10, 2002; June 9, 2002). Judge Michael Mukasey agrees with the government that Padilla can be held indefinitely as an “enemy combatant” even though he is a US citizen. But he says such enemy combatants can meet with a lawyer to contest their status. However, the ruling makes it very difficult to overturn such a status. The government only need show that “some evidence” supports its claims. [Washington Post, 12/5/2002; Washington Post, 12/11/2002] In Padilla’s case, many of the allegations against him given to the judge, such as Padilla taking his orders from al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida, have been widely dismissed in the media. [Washington Post, 9/1/2002] As The Guardian puts it, Padilla “appears to be little more than a disoriented thug with grandiose ideas.” [Guardian, 10/10/2002] After the ruling, Vice President Cheney sends Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement to see Mukasey on what Justice Department lawyers call “a suicide mission.” Clement, speaking for Cheney, tells Mukasey that he has erred so grossly that he needs to immediately retract his decision. Mukasey rejects the government’s “pinched legalism” and adds that his order is “not a suggestion or request.” [Washington Post, 6/25/2007] The government continues to challenge this ruling, and Padilla will continue to be denied access to a lawyer (see March 11, 2003).

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says: “The president of the United States and the Secretary of Defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it.” When pressed for details, he adds: “President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Richard Butler has said they do. The United Nations has said they do. The experts have said they do. Iraq says they don’t. You can choose who you want to believe.” [CBC News, 12/5/2002; Associated Press, 12/5/2003]

FBI agents raid Ptech offices. [Source: ABC News]Federal agents search the offices of Ptech, Inc., a Boston computer software company, looking for evidence of links to Osama bin Laden. A senior Ptech official confirms that Yassin al-Qadi, one of 12 Saudi businessmen on a secret CIA list suspected of funneling millions of dollars to al-Qaeda, was an investor in the company, beginning in 1994. Ptech appears to have connections to other potential terrorist financiers (see 1994). In particular, there seem to be many ties between Ptech and BMI Inc., a New Jersey-based company whose list of investors has been called a “who’s who of designated terrorists and Islamic extremists” (see 1986-October 1999). [Newsweek, 12/6/2002; WBZ 4 (Boston), 12/9/2002] A former FBI counterterrorism official states, “For someone like [al-Qadi] to be involved in a capacity, in an organization, a company that has access to classified information, that has access to government open or classified computer systems, would be of grave concern.” [WBZ 4 (Boston), 12/9/2002] On the day after the raid, US authorities will claim that Ptech’s software has been scrutinized and poses no danger. But security expert John Pike comments, “When you look at all of the different military security agencies that they have as customers, it’s very difficult to imagine how they would not be encountering sensitive information, classified information.” [National Public Radio, 12/8/2002] The search into Ptech is part of Operation Greenquest, which has served 114 search warrants in the past 14 months involving suspected terrorist financing. Fifty arrests have been made and $27.4 million seized. [Forbes, 12/6/2002] However, the raid appears to have been largely for show. Ptech was notified by US officials in November that they were being investigated, and they were told in advance exactly when the raid would take place (see May-December 5, 2002). Top officials in the US government appear to have made up their minds before the results of the raid can even be examined. White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer comments on the Ptech raid only hours after it ends: “The one thing I can share with you is that the products that were supplied by this company to the government all fell in the nonclassified area. None of it involved any classified products used by the government. The material has been reviewed by the appropriate government agencies, and they have detected absolutely nothing in their reports to the White House that would lead to any concern about any of the products purchased from this company.” [White House, 12/6/2002] The fact that the raid takes place at all appears to be due to the persistence of Operation Greenquest investigators, who are engaged at this time in a bureaucratic battle with other investigators over who will control US government investigations into terrorist financing (see After March 20, 2002-Early 2003). Greenquest will lose this battle early in 2003 and get shut down (see May 13-June 30, 2003). In his 2003 book Black Ice, author Dan Verton will call Ptech an “innocent” casualty of Operation Greenquest’s “scorched-earth” tactics. [Verton, 2003, pp. 223] No charges will be brought against Ptech, and the company will continue fulfilling sensitive government contracts under a new name (see May 14, 2004).

A sketch by MP Sergeant Thomas Curtis showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell. [Source: New York Times]Dilawar, a 22-year-old Afghan farmer and part-time taxi driver from the small village of Yakubi in eastern Afghanistan, is picked up by local authorities and turned over to US soldiers. Dilawar is described as a shy, uneducated man with a slight frame, rarely leaving the stone farmhouse he shares with his wife and family. He is captured while driving a used Toyota sedan that his family bought him to use as a taxi. He has three fares, men headed back towards his village, and is stopped by Afghan militiamen loyal to the guerrilla commander Jan Baz Khan. (Khan will later be taken into custody himself for allegedly attacking US targets and then turning over innocent villagers to US forces, accusing them of carrying out the attacks.) The militia confiscates a broken walkie-talkie from one of the passengers, and an electric stabilizer used to regulate current from a generator in the trunk of the Toyota (Dilawar’s family later says the stabilizer is not theirs; they have no electricity). All four men are turned over to American soldiers at Bagram Air Force Base as suspects in a recent rocket attack on the US base at Khost. They spend the first night handcuffed to the fence to deprive them of sleep. Dilawar is then examined by the base doctor, who pronounces him healthy. Passengers Shipped to Guantanamo, Say Bagram Treatment Far Worse - Dilawar’s three passengers are eventually shipped to Guantanamo for a year, before being released without charge. The three will describe their ordeal at Bagram as far worse than their treatment at Guantanamo. All will claim to have been beaten, stripped in front of female guards, and subjected to repeated and harsh rectal exams. Abdul Rahim, a baker from Khost, will recall: “They did lots and lots of bad things to me [at Bagram]. I was shouting and crying, and no one was listening. When I was shouting, the soldiers were slamming my head against the desk.” Another of Dilawar’s passengers, Parkhudin, later recalls that Dilawar “could not breathe” in the black cloth hood pulled over his head. Running Joke - Though Dilawar is shy and frail, he is quickly labeled “noncompliant.” One US military policeman, Specialist Corey Jones, reports that Dilawar spat on him and tried to kick him. Jones retaliated by giving him a number of “peroneal knee strikes” (see May 20, 2005). As Jones will later recall: “He screamed out, ‘Allah! Allah! Allah!’ and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his god. Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny. It became a kind of running joke, and people kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out ‘Allah.’ It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes.” Several other guards will later admit to striking Dilawar. While most MPs deny any knowledge of Dilawar being injured by the physical assaults, Jones will remember seeing Dilawar’s legs when his orange drawstring pants fell off of him while he was shackled. “I saw the bruise because his pants kept falling down while he was in standing restraints,” Jones will later recall. “Over a certain time period, I noticed it was the size of a fist.” Dilawar’s repeated cries and pleas for his release do little besides annoy his captors. Fourth Interrogation Marked by Beatings - Dilawar’s fourth interrogation, on December 8, turns sour. Lead interrogator Specialist Glendale Walls will contend that Dilawar is hostile and evasive. Sergeant Selena Salcedo, another interrogator, will say that Dilawar smiled, refused to answer questions, and refused to stay kneeling on the ground or in his ordered “chair-sitting” posture against the wall. But the interpreter present, Ahmad Ahmadzai, has a different recollection. According to Ahmadzai, Dilawar denies launching any rockets at the Americans. He is unable to hold his cuffed hands above him while kneeling, and Salcedo slaps them back up whenever they begin to droop. “Selena berated him for being weak and questioned him about being a man, which was very insulting because of his heritage,” Ahmadzai will tell investigators. Both Salcedo and Walls repeatedly slam Dilawar against the wall: “This went on for 10 or 15 minutes,” Ahmadzei will say. “He was so tired he couldn’t get up.” Salcedo begins stamping his foot, yanking his head by grabbing his beard, and kicking him in the groin. Ahmadzai will state: “About the first 10 minutes, I think, they were actually questioning him, after that it was pushing, shoving, kicking and shouting at him. There was no interrogation going on.” Salcedo orders the MPs to keep him chained to the ceiling of his cell until the next shift comes on. [Knight Ridder, 8/21/2004; New York Times, 5/20/2005]Chained to the Ceiling - The next morning, Dilawar is still chained to his ceiling. He begins shouting during the morning, and is ignored until around noon, when MPs ask another interpreter, Ebrahim Baerde, to see if he can calm Dilawar. Baerde will tell investigators: “I told him, ‘Look, please, if you want to be able to sit down and be released from shackles, you just need to be quiet for one more hour.’ He told me that if he was in shackles another hour, he would die.” A half-hour later, Baerde returns to the cell to find Dilawar slumped in his chains. “He wanted me to get a doctor, and said that he needed ‘a shot,’” Baerde will recall. “He said that he didn’t feel good. He said that his legs were hurting.” Baerde tells a guard, who checks Dilawar’s circulation by pressing down on his fingernails. According to Baerde, the guard says: “He’s okay. He’s just trying to get out of his restraints.” [New York Times, 3/4/2003; Guardian, 3/7/2003; Independent, 3/7/2003; Knight Ridder, 8/21/2004; New York Times, 9/17/2004; New York Times, 5/20/2005]Dead Days Later - Dilawar will be found dead in his cell days later (see December 10, 2002).

Dick Armey. [Source: US Congress]Dick Armey (R-TX) says during his farewell speech from the House of Representatives that Americans must beware of the “awful dangerous seduction of sacrificing our freedoms for safety against this insidious threat [of terrorism] that comes right into our neighborhoods.” He adds: “We the people had better keep an eye on… our government. Not out of contempt or lack of appreciation or disrespect, but out of a sense of guardianship.… Freedom is no policy for the timid. And my plaintive plea to all my colleagues that remain in government as I leave it is, for our sake, for my sake, and for heaven’s sake, don’t give up on freedom!” [Peace Corps, 12/6/2002; Dean, 2004, pp. 197-198]

UNMOVIC weapons inspection leader Hans Blix calls on the US to share its secret intelligence with inspectors. “Of course we would like to have as much information from any member state as to evidence they may have on weapons of mass destruction, and, in particular, sites,” he says. “Because we are inspectors, we can go to sites. They may be listening to what’s going on and they may have lots of other sources of information. But we can go to the sites legitimately and legally.” The New York Times notes: “On one hand, administration officials are pressing him to work faster and send out more inspectors to more places to undermine Baghdad’s ability to conceal any hidden programs. At the same time, Washington has been holding back its intelligence, waiting to see what Iraq will say in its declaration.” [New York Times, 12/7/2002]

At least two CIA interrogators blow cigar smoke in the face of al-Qaeda detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. One interrogator will later admit doing this to the CIA’s inspector general, but will say he smoked the cigars to “cover the stench” in the room and to help him remain alert late at night. He will add that he would not do it again, because of “perceived criticism.” Another interrogator will also admit smoking cigars in two sessions with al-Nashiri, again apparently to cover up the smell. However, he will say he did not deliberately force smoke into al-Nashiri’s face. [Central Intelligence Agency, 5/7/2004, pp. 43 ] At this time al-Nashiri is apparently being held at a CIA base in Poland. [Associated Press, 9/7/2010]

CIA interrogators use stress positions that will later be described as “potentially injurious” on detained al-Qaeda leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Al-Nashiri is required to kneel on the floor and lean back, and on one occasion he does this a CIA officer reportedly pushes him backwards. On another occasion, an unnamed person has to intervene after somebody else expresses concern that al-Nashiri’s arms might be dislocated from his shoulders. At this time the interrogators are attempting to put al-Nashiri into a standing stress position; he is reportedly lifted off the floor by his arms while they are bound behind his back with a belt. [Central Intelligence Agency, 5/7/2004, pp. 43 ] The timing of these events is unknown, although other similar abuse of al-Nashiri takes place around December 2002 (see Late December 2002 or Early January 2003 and Between December 28, 2002 and January 1, 2003). At this time al-Nashiri is apparently being held at a CIA base in Poland. [Associated Press, 9/7/2010]

On December 6, 2002, conservative media pundit Bill O’Reilly says about Saddam Hussein, “I can’t, in good conscience, tell the American people that I know for sure that he has smallpox or anthrax or he’s got nuclear or chemical and that he is ready to use that. I cannot say that as a journalist or an American.” O’Reilly is far more certain on February 7, 2003, when he tells his listeners, “According to the UN, he’s got anthrax, VX gas, ricin, and on and on.” On February 23, 2003, he says flatly, “This guy we know has anthrax and VX and all this stuff.” Then on March 18, 2003, just two days before the US invades Iraq, he says that he isn’t sure what kind of WMDs Saddam Hussein may possess: “Here’s the bottom line on this for every American and everybody in the world: Nobody knows for sure, all right? We don’t know what he has. We think he has 8,500 liters of anthrax. But let’s see.” [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), 5/2003]

Iraq submits its declaration of military and civilian chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities to the UN one day early. It consists of 12 CD-ROMs and 43 spiral-bound volumes containing a total of 11,807 pages. General Hussam Amin, the officer in charge of Iraq’s National Monitoring Directorate, tells reporters a few hours before the declaration is formally submitted: “We declared that Iraq is empty of weapons of mass destruction. I reiterate Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction. This declaration has some activities that are dual-use.” Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, a senior adviser to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, says the next day that Iraq’s pre-1991 nuclear program may have been close to developing a nuclear bomb, but denies that Baghdad continued the program. Meanwhile, the Bush administration remains furious over the Security Council’s previous day ruling that no member state—including the US—will be permitted access to the report until after “sensitive information about weapons manufacture had been removed.” White House officials say they were “blind-sided” by the decision. [Daily Telegraph, 12/8/2002; Observer, 12/8/2002; New York Times, 12/8/2002; Associated Press, 12/9/2002]Iraq's nuclear program - Roughly 2,100 pages of the declaration include information on Iraq’s former nuclear programs, including details on the sites and companies that were involved. [Associated Press, 12/9/2002; BBC, 12/10/2002]Iraq's chemical programs - It contains “several thousand pages,” beginning with a summary of Iraq’s former chemical weapons program, specifically “research and development activities, the production of chemical agents, relations with companies and a terminated radiation bomb project.” [Associated Press, 12/9/2002]The biological declaration - This section is much shorter than the sections dealing with Iraq’s nuclear and chemical programs. It includes “information on military institutions connected with the former biological weapons program, activities at the foot-and-mouth facility and a list of supporting documents.” [Associated Press, 12/9/2002]The ballistic missile declaration - This is the shortest section of Iraq’s declaration totaling about 1,200 pages. It consists of a chronological summary of the country’s ballistic missile program. [Associated Press, 12/9/2002]Iraq's suppliers of chemical and biological agent precursors - Iraq’s declaration includes the names of 150 foreign companies, several of which are from the US, Britain, Germany and France. Germany allowed eighty companies to supply Iraq with materials that could be used in the production of weapons of mass destruction since 1975, while the US allowed 24 of its own businesses. Also included in the list are ten French businesses and several Swiss and Chinese companies. “From about 1975 onwards, these companies are shown to have supplied entire complexes, building elements, basic materials and technical know-how for Saddam Hussein’s program to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction,” the Independent explains. “They also supplied rockets and complete conventional weapons systems.” [BBC, 12/10/2002; Reuters, 12/10/2002; Washington Post, 12/11/2002; New York Times, 12/12/2002; Newsday, 12/13/2002; Los Angeles Times, 12/15/2002; Independent, 12/18/2002]

Demetrius Perricos. [Source: EPA]Demetrius Perricos, Greek head of a UN inspections team that searched for chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, makes it clear that the inspection teams are not tools of the US and Britain. He says: “This time we have the most advanced equipment available, and the new UN resolution means that we will not be camping somewhere, but knocking on doors. The Iraqis know that, and they also know that a ‘material breach’ may lead to war. I think we shall get to the truth, and it is, of course, desirable that there is no war…. The people who sent us here are the international community and the UN. We are not serving the US and we are not serving [Britain]. The Iraqis would like us to be very light, the US would like us to be extremely severe. We think we are doing a proper job.” [Independent, 12/8/2002]

US Secretary of State Colin Powell successfully pressures the UN Security Council’s president, Colombian ambassador to the United Nations Alfonso Valdivieso, to override the Council’s December 6 decision (see December 6, 2002) that no country be permitted access to an unabridged copy of Iraq’s declaration. “The United States had initially accepted the argument Friday but then changed its mind over the
weekend, holding consultations between capitals,” reports the Associated Press. “Eventually US officials instructed Colombian Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, the current Security Council president, to hand over the complete copy of the declaration, which to the astonishment of many in the UN halls, he did.” [Associated Press, 12/9/2002; New York Times, 12/10/2002; New York Times, 12/21/2002] The Council president normally makes decisions only when there is a consensus of all 15 members. Notably, the US had promised Colombia a substantial increase in military aid less than a week beforehand. [New York Times, 12/10/2002] Under the new “decision,” only those countries with “the expertise to assess the risk of proliferation and other sensitive information” will be permitted to access the documents. The only countries that are considered qualified according to this criteria are the five permanent members. The other ten council members, including Syria, will only be allowed to view the declaration after translation, analysis and censorship of “sensitive material.” Syria and Norway are infuriated by the move. [Associated Press, 12/9/2002; Associated Press, 12/9/2002; New York Times, 12/10/2002; Washington Times, 12/12/2002] The photocopying of the documents will be done exclusively by the US. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will later acknowledge that the job should have been delegated to a less partial party. [London Times, 12/10/2002; Washington Times, 12/12/2002] The US will remove 3,200 pages of documents before turning the Iraqi documents over to the UN Security Council. [Carter, 2004, pp. 98-99]

Jamil al-Banna. [Source: Public domain]On December 8, 2002, British residents Bisher Al-Rawi and Jamil al-Banna are secretly flown from Gambia to the US military base in Bagram, Afghanistan. They had been held in Gambia by the CIA after the British intelligence agency MI5 gave the CIA false information suggesting the two of them were Islamist militants. In fact, they had worked until recently as informants for MI5. In Gambia, they were pressured to resume their informant work (see November 8, 2002-December 7, 2002). Once in Bagram, they are again pressured to be informants. The CIA asks if they will inform for them, instead of MI5. Al-Banna in particular is offered increasing sums of money and a US passport if he works for the CIA, but he refuses. [Washington Post, 4/2/2006] They are initially taken to the “dark prison” near Kabul and kept in the cold in complete darkness for two weeks. Loudspeakers blare music at them 24 hours a day. Al-Rawi will later recall: “For three days or so I just sat in the corner, shivering. The only time there was light was when a guard came to check on me with a very dim torch—as soon as he’d detect movement, he would leave. I tried to do a few push-ups and jogged on the spot to keep warm. There was no toilet paper, but I tore off my nappies and tried to use them to clean myself.” After about two weeks, they are taken to the nearby Bagram prison. They are heavily abused there too, starting by beating beaten up as they arrive. The two of them had worked as go-betweens between MI5 and the radical imam Abu Qatada, and in Bagram they are heavily pressured to incriminate Abu Qatada. By this time, Abu Qatada is imprisoned in Britain and fighting deportation. [Observer, 7/29/2007] Al-Banna will later tell a detainee in Guantanamo, Asif Iqbal, that Bagram was “rough” and “that he had been forced to walk around naked, coming and going from the showers, having to parade past American soldiers or guards including women who would laugh at everyone who was put in the same position.” [Rasul, Iqbal, and Ahmed, 7/26/2004 ] At no time during their detention are they permitted to see a lawyer, despite the fact that a habeas corpus petition has been filed on their behalf and is pending before British courts. In March 2003, they are sent to Guantanamo (see March 2003-November 18, 2007). [Amnesty International, 8/19/2003; Petition for writ of habeas corpus for Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna and Martin Mubanga. Jamil el-Banna, et al. v. George Bush, et al., 7/8/2004 ]

US commanders have rejected as too risky many special operations missions to attack Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. After Army Green Beret A-Teams received good intelligence on the whereabouts of former Taliban leader Mullah Omar, commanders turned down the missions as too dangerous. Soldiers traced the timidity to an incident in June 2002 called Operation Full Throttle, which resulted in the death of 34 civilians. [Washington Times, 12/9/2002]

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson joins former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, retired foreign service officer and terrorism expert L. Paul Bremer, and neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer at a symposium at the Nixon Center to discuss the impending Iraq invasion. Wilson is dismayed to hear the others “wax… eloquent about how we would reshape the Middle East with our invasion of Iraq.” Krauthammer: Iraq Will Provide Evidence for Further Efforts to Democratize Middle East - In Wilson’s description, Krauthammer is particularly voluble, telling the other participants that the US must invade and conquer Iraq for three reasons: weapons of mass destruction, American credibility, and the democratization of the Arab world. US credibility is at stake, Krauthammer says, because if the US does not invade after the months of increasingly belligerent rhetoric from the White House and its allies, “I think there will be a tremendous collapse of everything we had achieved by the war in Afghanistan. That would be a great strategic setback. And it would have negative effects on the region, especially on the war on terrorism.” As for the enforced democratization of the Arab states, Krauthammer likens it to “what [America] did in Germany and Japan” after World War II. “It’s about reforming the Arab world,” he says. “I think we don’t know the answer to the question of whether the Arab-Islamic world is inherently allergic to democracy. The assumption is that it is—but I don’t know if anyone can answer that question today. We haven’t attempted it so far. The attempt will begin with Iraq. Afterwards, we are going to have empirical evidence; history will tell us whether that assumption was correct or not.” Wilson will describe himself as “stunned by the unabashed ambition of this imperial project, by the willingness to countenance a major military engagement and lengthy occupation in order to ‘attempt’ to reform the Arab world, to remake it to our liking. What hubris, to put American lives and treasure at stake in order to gain empirical evidence to test an assumption.” Krauthammer concludes by giving what Wilson will call a “chilling comment that we needed to go to war soon, before the antiwar movement coalesced—in other words, before Americans woke up to the fact that this war was not at all about combating the publicly proclaimed grave and gathering danger posed by Saddam [Hussein].” A US 'Imperial War' - Wilson retorts that Krauthammer’s neoconservatives remind him of Napoleon’s generals “as they sat around the table and listened to his plans on the eve of the march on Moscow”—the ill-fated assault that led to the French emperor’s ultimate failure. After some back-and-forth, Krauthammer says that he is reminded, not of French imperialist ambitions, but of the US on the eve of World War II’s D-Day invasion of Normandy, which led to the downfall of the Nazi empire and the liberation of France. Wilson will later reflect: “If the advocates of [Krauthammer’s] vision in the symposium had their way, we really were going to try to bring Jeffersonian democracy to the Arab world on the coattails of an American military conquest. We were going to be waging an imperial war, pure and simple.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 309-312]

District Court Judge John Bates rules against the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, in its attempt to force Vice President Cheney to disclose some of his Energy Task Force documents (see January 29, 2001 and May 16, 2001). The judge writes, “This case, in which neither a House of Congress nor any congressional committee has issued a subpoena for the disputed information or authorized this suit, is not the setting for such unprecedented judicial action.” [Associated Press, 12/9/2002] Bates is a Republican who worked as the deputy independent counsel to Kenneth Starr in the Whitewater investigation, and was appointed to the bench by President Bush in 2001. [Savage, 2007, pp. 112] The GAO later declines to appeal the ruling (see February 7, 2003). In a similar suit being filed by Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club, the Bush administration has successfully delayed deadlines forcing these documents to be turned over. [Associated Press, 12/6/2002] That case will eventually be decided in the administration’s favor (see May 10, 2005). Cheney Pushes Back - Unfortunately, the ruling’s claim of no Congressional involvement is somewhat misleading. The original request for information came from two ranking House members, Henry Waxman (D-CA) of the Committee on Government Reform and John Conyers (D-MI) of the Energy and Commerce Committee (see April 19 - May 4, 2001). Waxman and Conyers followed standard procedure by writing to David Walker, head of the GAO, to request information about who was meeting with the task force and what the task force was doing (May 8, 2001. Instead of complying with the request, Cheney’s legal counsel, David Addington, replied that the task force was not subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and therefore not bound by law to provide such information (see May 16 - 17, 2001). Addington later challenged the GAO’s authority, saying that it was trying “to intrude into the heart of Executive deliberations, including deliberations among the President, the Vice President, members of the President’s Cabinet, and the President’s immediate assistants, which the law protects to ensure the candor in Executive deliberation necessary to effective government.” The GAO was not asking for such information; former Nixon White House counsel John Dean will write in 2004, “It was clear [Addington] was looking to pick a fight.” Tug of War - The GAO advised Addington that it did indeed have the legal power to examine the deliberations of such entities as the task force, and provided Addington both the statutory law and the legislative history, which flatly contradicted Addington’s refusal. The GAO also noted that it was “not inquiring into the deliberative process but [was] focused on gathering factual information regarding the process of developing President Bush’s National Energy Policy.” The GAO even narrowed the scope of its original request, asking only for the names of those who had worked with the task force, and the dates (see July 31, 2001). But this provoked further resistance from Cheney and his office, with Cheney publicly stating on numerous occasions that the GAO was unlawfully trying to intrude into the deliberative process. Walker’s patience ran out in January 2002, and he notified the White House and Congress that the GAO was taking the administration to court (see February 22, 2002). Hardball in Federal Court - Usually the case will be handled by lawyers from the Justice Department’s Civil Division. But this case is much more important to the White House to be left to the usual group of attorneys. Instead, this lawsuit is one of the very few to be handled by a special unit operating under the direct supervision of Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement and Clement’s boss, Solicitor General Theodore Olson. Olson, the lawyer who spearheaded the team that successfully argued the December 2000 Bush v. Gore case that awarded George W. Bush the presidency. Dean later learns that this special team was created specifically to find and handle cases that they can take to the Supreme Court in order to rewrite existing law, mostly laws that restrict the power of the presidency (see January 21, 2001). Many career attorneys at the Justice Department will become so offended by the existence and the agenda of this special legal team that they will resign their positions. The administraton sent a strong signal to Judge Bates when it sent Olson, who has argued many times before the Supreme Court, to argue the government’s case in his court. Dean will write that Bates, a recent Bush appointee and a veteran of the Whitewater investigation, “got the message.” He knows this case is slated to go to the Supreme Court if it doesn’t go the way the White House wants. Standing the Law On Its Head - According to Dean, Bates turns the entire body of statutory law overseeing the GAO and its powers to compel information from the executive branch on its head. He rules that the GAO lacks the “standing to sue,” saying that it doesn’t have enough of a legal stake in the controversy to have a role in trying to compel information. Bates, flying in the face of over eight decades of law and precedent, rules that, in essence, the GAO is merely an agent of Congress, and because neither the GAO nor Walker had suffered injury because of the task force’s refusal to comply with its request, the GAO has no legal recourse against the executive branch. Bates hangs much of his ruling on the fact that Congress has not yet subpoenaed the White House for the task force information. Thusly, Bates guts the entire structure of enforcement authority the GAO has as part of its statutory mandate. Bates does not go as far as the Justice Department wants, by not specifically ruling that the entire GAO statute is unconstitutional, but otherwise Bates’s ruling is a complete victory for the White House. [Dean, 2004, pp. 76-80] Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein later write that “Bates’s ruling creates a legislative Catch-22 for Democrats.” Because the GOP is the majority party, and because GOP Congressional leaders refuse to subpoena the White House on virtually any issue or conflict, no such subpoenas as Bates is mandating are likely to ever be granted by Republican committee chairmen. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 14] In 2007, author and reporter Charlie Savage will write that Bates’s ruling severely eroded the GAO’s “ability to threaten to file a lawsuit [and] damaged the congressional watchdog’s capability to persuade executive branch agencies to comply with its requests for information.… Bates had established a principle that, if left undisturbed, could change the attitudes of executive branch officials when the GAO asked for documents they did not want to disclose.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 112-113]

The Guardian of London reports that according to unnamed sources in New York and London, “the US and Britain lack ‘killer’ intelligence that will prove conclusively that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” The article quotes one source as saying, “If we had intelligence that there is a piece of weaponry at this map reference, we would tell the inspectors and they would be there like a shot.” [Guardian, 12/10/2002]

Dilawar. [Source: CBS]Dilawar, an Afghan farmer turned taxi driver who was detained by US troops on December 5 (see December 5-9, 2002), is found dead in his cell at Bagram. Earlier that day, he was taken to the interrogation room for what will be his last interrogation. An interpreter will later describes him with legs uncontrollably jumping and numbed hands; Dilawar had been chained by his wrists to the top of his cell for four days and suffered repeated beatings from guards. He is agitated and confused, crying that his wife is dead and complaining of being beaten by his guards. Interpreter Ali Baryalai will later tell investigators, “We didn’t pursue that.” Making Sure the Prisoner is Hydrated - Dilawar is interrogated by two MPs, Specialists Glendale Walls and Joshua Claus. Though Walls is the lead interrogator, the more aggressive Claus quickly takes control of the proceedings. “Josh had a rule that the detainee had to look at him, not me,” the interpreter will tell investigators. “He gave him three chances, and then he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him towards him, across the table, slamming his chest into the table front.” Both Walls and Claus slam Dilawar against the wall when he tries and fails to kneel; he begins to either fall asleep or pass out. Baryalai will later state, “It looked to me like Dilawar was trying to cooperate, but he couldn’t physically perform the tasks.” As Baryalai will later tell investigators, Claus grabs Dilawar, shakes him, and tells him that if he does not cooperate, he will be shipped to a prison in the United States, where he would be “treated like a woman, by the other men” and face the wrath of criminals who “would be very angry with anyone involved in the 9/11 attacks.” Dilawar asks for a drink of water, and Claus responds by taking a large plastic water bottle and, instead of giving Dilawar the water, punching a hole in the bottom of the bottle. As Dilawar fumbles with the bottle, the water pours over his orange prison garb. Claus then snatches the bottle back and begins spraying the water into Dilawar’s face. As Dilawar gags on the spray, Claus shouts: “Come on, drink! Drink!” A third interrogator, Staff Sergeant Christopher Yonushonis, enters the room and, as he will recall, finds a large puddle of water, a soaking wet Dilawar, and Claus standing behind Dilawar, twisting up the back of the hood that covers the prisoner’s head. “I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood,” Yonushonis will recall. “I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behavior seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection.” When Yonushonis demands an explanation, Claus responds, “We had to make sure he stayed hydrated.” Dies While Chained to the Ceiling - An interrogator, presumably Yonushonis, promises Dilawar that he can see a doctor after the interrogation session concludes, but Claus tells the guards not to take him to a doctor. Instead, Claus tell the guards to chain him to the ceiling again. “Leave him up,” one of the guards will later quote Claus as saying. Dilawar dies while chained up; hours later, an emergency room doctor sees Dilawar’s body already dead and stiffening. Yonushonis reports the abusive interrogation to his superior officer, Staff Sergeant Steven Loring, but Dilawar is already dead. Autopsy Report: Legs 'Pulpified' - An autopsy will find Dilawar’s death caused by “blunt force injuries to the lower extremities.” At a pre-trial hearing for one of the guards involved in Dilawar’s abuse, a coroner will say the tissue in the prisoner’s legs “had basically been pulpified.” Major Elizabeth Rouse, another coroner and the one who termed Dilawar’s cause of death to be “homicide,” will add, “I’ve seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.” Walls and Claus will both be charged with assault and maltreatment of a prisoner. [New York Times, 5/20/2005]Changes Implemented - After Dilawar’s death, the second in a matter of days (see November 30-December 3, 2002), some changes are implemented at Bagram. A medic is assigned to work the night shift. Interrogators are prohibited from physical contact with the detainees. Chaining prisoners to fixed objects is banned, and the use of stress positions is curtailed. Yonushonis will not be interviewed until August 2004, when he contacts an agent of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command on his own initiative to discuss his knowledge of Dilawar’s death. “I expected to be contacted at some point by investigators in this case,” he will say. “I was living a few doors down from the interrogation room, and I had been one of the last to see this detainee alive.” Of the last interrogation, Yonushonis will tell investigators, “I remember being so mad that I had trouble speaking.” He also adds one extra detail: by the time Dilawar was interrogated the final time, “most of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent.” [New York Times, 3/4/2003; Washington Post, 3/5/2003; BBC, 3/6/2003; Guardian, 3/7/2003; Independent, 3/7/2003; New York Times, 9/17/2004; New York Times, 5/20/2005]

An Army memorandum released to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 2006 (see January 12, 2006) will refer to the “SERE INTERROGATION SOP” (standard operating procedure) for Guantanamo. SERE refers to “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape,” a classified military program originally designed to teach US soldiers how to resist torture, and subsequently “reverse-engineered” for use in subjecting US prisoners to harsh interrogation and torture (see December 2001, January 2002 and After, and July 2002). The memo, which is heavily redacted, shows that torture techniques used in SERE training may have been authorized in a memo to military personnel at Guantanamo. [American Civil Liberties Union, 1/12/2006]

Mark Barnett in 2009. [Source: Keloland TV (.com)]Mark Barnett, the attorney general of South Dakota, says that Republican allegations of voter fraud in the recent election of Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) over challenger John Thune (R-SD) are baseless. Barnett is a Republican. Republican National Committee (RNC) officials have turned over 50 affidavits to Barnett’s office, alleging an array of crimes and improprieties. Barnett says only one allegation merits any further inquiry. “Many of the things alleged simply are not crimes,” Barnett says. “Those affidavits simply do not give me cause to think there was an election rip-off.” RNC officials secured affidavits from Republican poll watchers after Johnson’s 524-vote victory over Thune, and gave the affidavits to South Dakota prosecutors in late November. Barnett intends to investigate claims that voters were offered cash to vote. “It’s the two or three affidavits out of 50 that really jumped out and grabbed me as something I need to follow up on,” he says. “I don’t express any opinion on whether those affidavits are true or can be proved. We’re going to have those interviews done.” The “cash for votes” allegation was made in three of the 50 affidavits. One affidavit features a witness claiming she was offered money to vote, and two are from people who say they overheard voters being offered money. The other affidavits allege crimes or improprieties where there were none. “Realistically, many of the things set out in those affidavits are not crimes,” Barnett says. “They are what I would call local election-board management problems. A fair number could be read as complaints about how effective the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort was. They had people watching, then jumping on the phone to one of their drivers.” Even if all of the allegations were true, Barnett says, the results of the election would not change. The RNC says after Barnett’s statement: “The information that the attorney general reviewed is only one area of the problems reported with the election. This is not just about criminal activity but about how the people of South Dakota carry out their elections. They will have to decide at both the local level and the State Legislature whether changes need to be made to the system.” A spokesperson for Johnson says Thune could stop all of the dissension and allegations if he would speak out against them. Thune is referring all questions about the election to the RNC. Some of the unfounded allegations include: poll workers offering variants of names to voters until a match could be found in voting records; stickers being placed over votes for Thune on ballots to fool voting machines into not counting the votes; and what the Rapid City Journal characterizes as “a high degree of coordination between poll workers in some precincts and workers for the Democratic Party.” Barnett is particularly irritated by Republican complaints that Democrats forced polls in some counties to stay open too long. Some county polls stayed open until 8 p.m. Central Standard Time; because the counties in question are in the Mountain time zone, they were required by law to stay open until 7 p.m. Mountain, which is 8 p.m. Central. “Saying the polls were open too long is not an accurate way to describe it. It was opened too early,” Barnett says. “Several affidavits assume that Democratic operatives are the ones who made it stay open. That’s not accurate. It was Republican officials who made the decision, myself among them.… If you screw up and open at 6, you don’t fix a morning screw-up by doing an evening screw-up. If a voter had walked up to a polling place at 6:30 p.m. and found a padlocked door, we would have had the clearest case of a voter-rights violation that I ever heard of. If statute says you’re open until 7, you’re open until 7.” Barnett says many of the complaints were of the effective Democratic efforts of getting voters to the polls in vans, and of Democrats working on those efforts inside polling places. These are extraordinarily low-level infractions, Barnett says, and are routinely committed by workers of both parties in every election. The RNC has refused to provide copies of the allegations to local reporters [Rapid City Journal, 12/10/2002] but will provide them to Byron York, a reporter for the conservative National Review. York will write an article alleging “massive voter fraud” based on the affidavits (see December 19, 2002). Three days later, Barnett will report that the allegations of “vote buying” are groundless. One of the witnesses on the three affidavits could not be located. The second said his signature had been forged on the affidavit. The third said she signed the affidavit after being pressured by a friend. Barnett says: “These affidavits are either perjury or forgery, or call them what you will. They are just flat false.” [Talking Points Memo, 12/16/2002]

Tom Wilshire, a CIA officer involved in the failed search for hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar before 9/11, is interviewed by the Congressional Inquiry and comments on some of the failures. When asked about the failure to watchlist Nawaf Alhazmi based on a cable telling CIA headquarters he had arrived in the US and was a terrorist (see March 5, 2000 and March 6, 2000 and After), Wilshire says: “It’s very difficult to understand what happened with [the] cable when it came in. I don’t know exactly why it was missed. It would appear that it was missed.” Commenting on a meeting in June 2001 where the CIA failed to tell the FBI what it knew about Almihdhar and Alhazmi despite showing them photographs of the two hijackers (see June 11, 2001), Wilshire says: “[E]very place that something could have gone wrong in this over a year and a half, it went wrong. All the processes that had been put in place, all the safeguards, everything else, they failed at every possible opportunity. Nothing went right.” [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 147, 151 ]

US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John R. Bolton meets with UN Security Council representatives to argue the Bush administration’s case for tightening sanctions on Iraq. Several of the 38 changes that are favored by the Bush administration are aimed at preventing Iraq from acquiring new military equipment—equipment that might be used in an attempt to defend itself in the event of a US and British invasion. Among such items are jammers to block satellite-positioning systems, ultra-wide-band radios and broadcast equipment. The US also wants to extend the import restrictions to several medicines that could be used as antidotes to chemical weapons agents, including atropine, pralidoxime and sodium nitrite. [New York Times, 12/12/2002]

CIA Director Tenet says in a speech, “The Saudis are [providing] increasingly important support to our counterterrorism efforts, from making arrests to sharing debriefing results.” [Washington Post, 12/26/2002] Several terrorist suspects have been sent to Saudi Arabia for interrogation as part of a special rendition program. But US officials often “remain closely involved” with the questioning (see 1993).

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sends President Bush a memo requesting authority to appoint US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) commander Adm. James O. Ellis Jr. in charge of all of the United States’ “strategic” warfare options to combat terrorist states and organizations. By giving STRATCOM warplanners jurisdiction over the full range of the country’s warfare options, the president would effectively remove a decades-old firewall between conventional and nuclear weapons which had served to prevent nuclear arms from being anything but a weapon of last resort. According to William Arkin, a columnist for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the request, if approved, would remove “nuclear weapons out of their long-established special category and [lump] them in with all the other military options.” Bush approves the request early the following month (see Early January 2003). [Los Angeles Times, 1/26/2003Sources: Unnamed senior military officials at US Central Command, Memo obtained by the LA Times]

Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, and Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chairman James L. Connaughton meet with President Bush to discuss the implementation of the administration’s “Healthy Forest Initiative.” After the meeting, they announce proposed changes that would expedite the approval of “fuels treatment” projects (forest thinning) by weakening the review process and restricting public input. [US Department of Interior, 12/11/2002; Associated Press, 12/11/2002] Critics say the changes would make it easier for the timber industry to cut the larger, more fire resistant trees, making the forests more vulnerable to wildfires. They also charge that the proposed rules would allow logging interests to override local concerns. [Natural Resources Defense Council, 12/11/2002] Mike Francis, a forest specialist with the Wilderness Society, commenting on the proposed rule changes, tells the Associated Press, “Those are nothing more than administration’s typical desires to cut the public out of forest decisions. This administration doesn’t like what the public wants to do with their forests.” [Associated Press, 12/11/2002]

The US is outraged to learn that North Korean-made Scud ballistic missiles are found aboard a ship bound for Yemen. The US initially detains the ship, but is later forced to release it and concede that neither North Korea nor Yemen had broken any laws. [BBC, 12/2007]

In discussing the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on 9/11, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), the committee chairman, says he is “surprised at the evidence that there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the [9/11] terrorists in the United States.… To me that is an extremely significant issue and most of that information is classified, I think overly classified. I believe the American people should know the extent of the challenge that we face in terms of foreign government involvement. I think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing—although that was part of it—by a sovereign foreign government and that we have been derelict in our duty to track that down.… It will become public at some point when it’s turned over to the archives, but that’s 20 or 30 years from now.” [PBS, 12/11/2002] In March 2003, Newsweek says its sources indicate Graham is speaking about Saudi Arabia, and that leads pointing in this direction have been pursued. Graham also says that the report contains far more miscues than have been publicly revealed. “There’s been a cover-up of this,” he says. [Newsweek, 3/1/2003]

The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry concludes its seven-month investigation of the performance of government agencies before the 9/11 attacks. A report hundreds of pages long has been written, but only nine pages of findings and 15 pages of recommendations are released at this time, and these have blacked out sections. [Los Angeles Times, 12/12/2002] After months of wrangling over what has to be classified, the final report will be released in July 2003 (see July 24, 2003). In the findings released at the present time, the inquiry accuses the Bush administration of refusing to declassify information about possible Saudi Arabian financial links to US-based Islamic militants, criticizes the FBI for not adapting into a domestic intelligence bureau after the 9/11 attacks, and says the CIA lacked an effective system for holding its officials accountable for their actions. Asked if 9/11 could have been prevented, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), the committee chairman, gives “a conditional yes.” Graham says the Bush administration has given Americans an “incomplete and distorted picture” of the foreign assistance the hijackers may have received. [ABC News, 12/10/2002] Graham further says, “There are many more findings to be disclosed” that Americans would find “more than interesting,” and he and others express frustration that information that should be released is being kept classified by the Bush administration. [St. Petersburg Times, 12/12/2002] Many of these findings will remain classified after the inquiry’s final report is released. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), the vice chairman, singles out six people as having “failed in significant ways to ensure that this country was as prepared as it could have been”: CIA Director George Tenet; Tenet’s predecessor, John Deutch; former FBI Director Louis Freeh; NSA Director Michael Hayden; Hayden’s predecessor, Lieutenant General Kenneth Minihan; and former Deputy Director Barbara McNamara. [US Congress, 12/11/2002; Washington Post, 12/12/2002] Shelby says that Tenet should resign. “There have been more failures on his watch as far as massive intelligence failures than any CIA director in history. Yet he’s still there. It’s inexplicable to me.” [Reuters, 12/10/2002; PBS, 12/11/2002] But the Los Angeles Times criticizes the inquiry’s plan of action, stating, “A list of 19 recommendations consists largely of recycled proposals and tepid calls for further study of thorny issues members themselves could not resolve.” [Los Angeles Times, 12/12/2002]

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) releases a report saying that satellite photos indicate that Iran is constructing two nuclear facilities (see August 2002). The report says the first facility, near Arak, is a heavy-water production facility, which raises concerns that Iran might be constructing a nuclear reactor moderated by heavy water. Lending further suspicion to the purpose behind the heavy-water facility is the fact that the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear reactor does not use heavy water. Additionally, ISIS reports, Iran’s existing research reactors do not consume enough heavy water to warrant the need for a heavy-water plant. The report also says that Iran appears to be building a uranium enrichment plant, possibly using gas centrifuge technology, at a site called Natanz, 25 miles southeast of the city of Kashan. [Institute for Science and International Security, 12/12/2002; Nuclear Threat Initiative, 12/13/2002] The following day, Iran’s UN Ambassador Javad Zarif tells CNN that his country is not developing nuclear weapons. “No. Absolutely not,” Zarif says in response to a question on whether Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program. “Iran is a member of the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty. We have safeguard agreements with the IAEA. Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction do not have a place in our defense doctrine. We have stated that clearly. And we have shown it.” [CNN, 12/13/2002]

The Bush administration claims that Iraq’s December 7 declaration (see December 7, 2002) was incomplete. [New York Times, 12/13/2002] It does not explain what happened to the 550 shells filled with mustard gas that the UNSCOM inspectors were never able to account for. [New York Times, 12/13/2002; New York Times, 12/23/2002] It does not explain what happened to the 157 bombs filled with biological agents that the UNSCOM inspectors were never able to account for. [Washington Post, 12/19/2002; New York Times, 12/23/2002] It does not explain “why Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Africa in recent years, as well as high-technology materials that the United States and Britain have said were destined for a program to enrich uranium.” [New York Times, 12/13/2002; New York Times, 12/23/2002] It does not explain what happened to the 3,000 tons of chemical precursors and 360 tons of actual chemical warfare agents that the UNSCOM inspectors were never able to account for. [BBC, 12/19/2002; Washington Post, 12/19/2002; New York Times, 12/23/2002] It failed to provide evidence for Iraq’s claim that It had destroyed 1.5 tons of VX nerve gas. The 1999 UNSCOM report had stated, “According to Iraq, 1.5 tons of VX were discarded unilaterally by dumping on the ground. Traces of one VX-degradation product and a chemical known as a VX-stabilizer were found in the samples taken from the VX dump sites. A quantified assessment is not possible.” [BBC, 12/19/2002] Gen. Amir Saadi will explain that the VX gas was indeed accounted for in the December 7 declaration. He says that Iraq had unsuccessfully attempted in April 1990 to produce VX but that the material had degraded quickly and, as a result, the experiment was abandoned. “No production was achieved; no VX was produced,” he says. [New York Times, 12/23/2002]

Barton Gellman. [Source: Publicity photo via Washington Post]On December 12, 2002, the Washington Post publishes a front-page story by reporter Barton Gellman entitled “US Suspects Al-Qaeda Got Nerve Agent From Iraqis.” It states: “The Bush administration has received a credible report that Islamic extremists affiliated with al-Qaeda took possession of a chemical weapon in Iraq last month or late in October, according to two officials with firsthand knowledge of the report and its source. They said government analysts suspect that the transaction involved the nerve agent VX and that a courier managed to smuggle it overland through Turkey.” [Washington Post, 12/12/2002] The story proves so controversial that the Post’s ombudsman Michael Getler writes a column about in on December 22. Getler notes that, “[B]eginning with the second paragraph, which started out, ‘If the report proves true…’ the story contains an extraordinary array of flashing yellow lights.” He asks, “[W]hat, after all, is the use of this story that practically begs you not to put much credence in it? Why was it so prominently displayed, and why not wait until there was more certainty about the intelligence?” However, he says the Post stands by publishing the story. [Washington Post, 12/12/2002] Slate will comment in 2004, “[T]he Gellman scoop withered on the vine.… nobody advanced or refuted the story—not even Gellman.” Gellman will later admit that he should have run a follow-up story, if only to point out that no confirming evidence had come out. [Slate, 4/28/2004] He will later admit the story was incorrect. But he will continue to defend the story, claiming that “it was news even though it was clear that it was possible this report would turn out to be false.” [Washington Post, 8/12/2004]

When the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry finishes its final report (see December 11, 2002), it asks the CIA’s office of inspector general (OIG) to review its findings and to perform any additional investigations that are required. The purpose of this is to determine whether any CIA employees deserve awards for outstanding services, or whether some should be held accountable for not performing their responsibilities satisfactorily. But these are the only 9/11-related issues the OIG investigates. It does not perform a full review of the CIA’s performance before 9/11, and does not specifically focus on systemic issues. [Central Intelligence Agency, 6/2005, pp. v-vi ]

North Korea, stung by repeated rebuffs towards its attempts to reopen diplomatic negotiations with the US (see October 27, 2002 and November 2002), announces that it will restart its nuclear facilities. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 239] It blames the US for ignoring its responsibilities under the 1994 Agreed Framework (see October 21, 1994). In the next few days and weeks, North Korea will ask the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to remove its seals and surveillance equipment from the Yongbyon nuclear facility, will itself begin removing monitoring equipment, and will begin shipping fuel rods to the Yongbyon plant to begin creating plutonium (see January 10, 2003 and After). [BBC, 12/2007]

An ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that 81 percent of Americans see “Iraq as a threat to the United States,” 64 percent “think that threat is a substantial one,” and 44 percent “see Iraq as an ‘immediate’ danger.” The poll is conducted among a random national sample of 1,209 adults and the results have a 3 percent error margin. [ABC News, 12/17/2002]

Bruce Ivins working as a Red Cross volunteer in 2003. [Source: Associated Press]During a several day search of a pond near Frederick, Maryland, by FBI investigators for clues to the anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001), Scientist Bruce Ivins is there with the investigators, working as a Red Cross volunteer. Ivins will commit suicide in 2008 after coming under scrutiny as the FBI’s main suspect in the anthrax attacks (see July 29, 2008). The pond search is highly publicized at the time, and is an unsuccessful effort to find evidence connecting the attacks to Steven Hatfill, the FBI’s main suspect at the time (see December 12-17, 2002). The pond is near USAMRIID, the US Army’s top bioweapons laboratory where Ivins works and Hatfill used to work. As a Red Cross volunteer, Ivins serves coffee, donuts, and snacks to FBI agents and other investigators in a military tent. He is eventually removed after officials realize he is an anthrax researcher who could compromise the investigation. Apparently, Ivins is a regular Red Cross volunteer at the time. Miriam Fleming, another Red Cross volunteer working at the pond search, will later recall that Ivins “was kind of goofy, but he was always in a good mood. He seemed so normal.” [New York Times, 8/7/2008]

At least 15 FBI investigators conduct a six-day search of Gambrill State Park (outside Frederick, Maryland) and Frederick Municipal Forest in connection with the anthrax investigation. Frederick Municipal Forest is located about four miles northwest of USAMRIID, the Army’s principal biodefense laboratory. In addition to a ground search and excavation of some areas, teams of divers search small lakes and ponds in the park. The search is based on suspicions that former USAMRIID government scientist Steven Hatfill may have disposed of laboratory equipment in one of the ponds near his former Maryland home
(see February 1999, 1997-September 1999, August 1, 2002, and August 4, 2002). Details of the search are immediately leaked to the media. [ABC News, 12/12/2002; CNN, 12/13/2002; Washington Post, 12/13/2002; Baltimore Sun, 12/13/2002] But the search turns up nothing incriminating. [ABC News, 1/9/2003]

The top two dozen US government officials meet for a year-end review of counterterrorism efforts. Counterterrorism “tsar” Gen. John Gordon chairs the meeting. At one point, President Bush turns to Deputy Treasury Secretary Kenneth Dam and asks him, “Ken, where are we on terror finances?” Dam replies, “Mr. President, the majority of the funders for al-Qaeda are Saudis.” Dan gave all the meeting participants a one-page memo listing the fifteen or so top al-Qaeda funders, and almost all of them are Saudis. According to journalist Ron Suskind’s account, “Bush looked at Dam, perplexed, as though he either hadn’t read the handout in front of him, or was somehow surprised—though this was all but common knowledge.” Bush then asks how this is known and is told it is based on CIA intelligence. Bush then ends the meeting a few minutes later without any further comments or plan for action about terrorism financing. Apparently, he takes no significant action on the issue in the following months, either. [Suskind, 2006, pp. 184-186]

Andrew Marshall. [Source: George Lewis]Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz receives a draft report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment which, according to a source interviewed by Newsday, recommends that “the cost of the occupation, the cost for the military administration and providing for a provisional administration, all of that would come out of Iraqi oil.” The report was commissioned by Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon’s influential director of Net Assessment. [Newsday, 1/10/2003] This contradicts a report titled, Potential Costs of a War with Iraq and Its Post War Occupation, which is published by the Center two months later on February 25, 2003. It notes that “given the enormity of Iraq’s reconstruction requirements and the size of its foreign debt, if the Bush Administration’s goal is to turn Iraq into a stable, pro-US democracy, it would probably prove counterproductive to use Iraqi oil revenues to reimburse [Defense Department] for its costs.” [Kosiak, 2/5/2003]

Henry Kissinger resigns as head of the new 9/11 Commission. [Associated Press, 12/13/2002; Associated Press, 12/13/2002] Two days earlier, the Bush administration argued that Kissinger was not required to disclose his private business clients. [New York Times, 12/12/2002] However, the Congressional Research Service insists that he does, and Kissinger resigns rather than reveal his clients. [MSNBC, 12/13/2002; Seattle Times, 12/14/2002]Spilled Coffee - Kissinger had also been pressured to reveal his client list at a meeting with a group of victims’ relatives, in particular the “Jersey Girls.” One of the “Girls,” Lorie Van Auken, had even asked Kissinger whether he had “any clients named bin Laden?” Kissinger, who was pouring coffee at that moment, refused to answer, but spilled the coffee and fell off the sofa on which he was sitting. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 12-3]Business Ties - It is reported that Kissinger is (or has been) a consultant for Unocal, the oil corporation, and was involved in plans to build pipelines through Afghanistan (see September-October 1995). [Washington Post, 10/5/1998; Salon, 12/3/2002] Kissinger claims he did no current work for any oil companies or Mideast clients, but several corporations with heavy investments in Saudi Arabia, such as ABB Group, a Swiss-Swedish engineering firm, and Boeing Corp., pay him consulting fees of at least $250,000 a year. A Boeing spokesman said its “long-standing” relationship with Kissinger involved advice on deals in East Asia, not Saudi Arabia. Boeing sold $7.2 billion worth of aircraft to Saudi Arabia in 1995. [Newsweek, 12/15/2002]Not Vetted - In a surprising break from usual procedures regarding high-profile presidential appointments, White House lawyers never vetted Kissinger for conflicts of interest. [Newsweek, 12/15/2002] The Washington Post says that after the resignations of Kissinger and Mitchell, the commission “has lost time” and “is in disarray, which is no small trick given that it has yet to meet.” [Washington Post, 12/14/2002]

The CIA’s inspector general, which is reviewing some aspects of the CIA’s performance with respect to 9/11, examines the agency’s analysis of Osama bin Laden-related matters before the attacks and finds it was wanting. The executive summary of the inspector general’s report will state that the US intelligence community’s understanding of al-Qaeda “was hampered by insufficient analytic focus, particularly regarding strategic analysis.” The inspector general also asks three former senior analysts to review what was produced about bin Laden. They find that there were some shortcomings, and that some important elements, such as discussions of the implications of information, were ignored. In addition they find there was: No comprehensive strategic assessment of al-Qaeda by any unit at the CIA; No comprehensive report focused on bin Laden after 1993; No examination of the possible use of planes as weapons; Limited analytic focus on the US as a target; No comprehensive analysis putting the increased threat reporting in the summer of 2001 into context; Not much strategic analysis in the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, where the analytical unit focused on current and tactical issues. In addition, the National Intelligence Council produced its last terrorist threat assessment before 9/11 in 1995, although it was updated in 1997. Work on a new assessment began in early 2001, but was not completed by 9/11. [Central Intelligence Agency, 6/2005, pp. xvii-xviii ]

Following Henry Kissinger’s resignation as 9/11 Commission chairman the day before (see November 27, 2002), presidential aide Karl Rove calls Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, to ask if he is willing to be considered as chairman of the Commission. Kean, who does not know Rove well and has been out of politics for some time, is surprised that he is being considered for the job. He is even more surprised that it is Rove making the call, especially given Rove’s reputation as the brain behind the rise of President George W. Bush. However, he says that he may do the job, if chosen. Kean will later speak to the president’s chief of staff Andy Card about the job, and formally accept it in a call from President Bush. Rove will later say that he thinks it was he who first suggested Kean as chairman, but will add that he regrets this, due to later battles with the White House. Card will also say he thinks he was the first to suggest Kean. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 16-7, 25]

CIA employees who have been applying “enhanced interrogation techniques” to al-Qaeda leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri decide that he is now “compliant.” The techniques, including waterboarding, have been used on al-Nashiri for around a month (see (November 2002)). At this point, the agency regards him to be ready to be “debriefed”—a CIA term for part of an interrogation conducted by a more knowledgeable officer who does not use the enhanced techniques, or not to such an extent. Following this decision, the Counterterrorist Center at CIA headquarters sends out a senior operations officer to question al-Nashiri. [Central Intelligence Agency, 5/7/2004, pp. 36, 41 ] This officer will later become known to the public as “Albert.” [Associated Press, 9/7/2010] Al-Nashiri is currently being held at CIA black site in Poland (see December 5, 2002).

The New York Times reports that the Defense Department “is considering issuing a secret directive to the American military to conduct covert operations aimed at influencing public opinion and policy makers in friendly and neutral countries’ in order to stem the tide of anti-Americanism. The Pentagon has considered several tactics it may employ to improve America’s image abroad. For example, the Times explains that the Pentagon “might pay journalists to write stories favorable to American policies,” or hire “outside contractors without obvious ties to the Pentagon to organize rallies in support of American policies.” Another idea would be to set “up schools with secret American financing to teach a moderate Islamic position laced with sympathetic depictions of how the religion is practiced in America.” Several official sources interviewed by the Times opposed the plans. One military officer tells the newspaper: “We have the assets and the capabilities and the training to go into friendly and neutral nations to influence public opinion. We could do it and get away with it. That doesn’t mean we should.” Retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair, a former commander of American forces in the Pacific, says that it probably wouldn’t be very effective. “Running ops against your allies doesn’t work very well…. I’ve seen it tried a few times, and it generally is not very effective,” he says. [New York Times, 12/16/2002] The White House defends the program. “The president has the expectation that any program that is created in his administration will be based on facts, and that’s what he would expect to be carried out in any program that is created in any entity of the government,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says. [New York Times, 12/16/2002]

Thomas Kean.
[Source: Public domain]President Bush names former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean as the chairman of the 9/11 Commission after his original choice, Henry Kissinger, resigned (see December 13, 2002). [Washington Post, 12/17/2002] In an appearance on NBC, Kean promises an aggressive investigation. “It’s really a remarkably broad mandate, so I don’t think we’ll have any problem looking under every rock. I’ve got no problems in going as far as we have to in finding out the facts.” [Associated Press, 12/17/2002] However, Kean plans to remain president of Drew University and devote only one day a week to the commission. He also claims he would have no conflicts of interest, stating: “I have no clients except the university.” [Washington Post, 12/17/2002] However, he has a history of such conflicts of interest. Multinational Monitor has previously stated: “Perhaps no individual more clearly illustrates the dangers of university presidents maintaining corporate ties than Thomas Kean,” citing the fact that he is on the Board of Directors of Aramark (which received a large contract with his university after he became president), Bell Atlantic, United Health Care, Beneficial Corporation, Fiduciary Trust Company International, and others. [Multinational Monitor, 11/1997]

A CIA official known as a “debriefer” who has come out to question al-Qaeda leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at a secret CIA black site in Poland says that al-Nashiri is withholding information during interrogations. [Central Intelligence Agency, 5/7/2004, pp. 41 ; Associated Press, 9/7/2010] Al-Nashiri had previously been tortured by the agency (see (November 2002)), but the torture stopped when interrogators decided he was “compliant” (see Mid-December 2002). However, due to the decision that al-Nashiri is withholding information, some of the agency’s harsh techniques, including hooding and shackling, are now reinstated. [Central Intelligence Agency, 5/7/2004, pp. 41 ] According to a former CIA official who will talk to the Associated Press in 2010, the conclusion reached by the debriefer, who will later become known to the public as “Albert,” is disputed. Based on this official’s account, the Associated Press will report that there are “heated arguments at CIA headquarters” over what to do with al-Nashiri, but that in the end the abuse starts again. [Associated Press, 9/7/2010]

Richard Ben-Veniste. [Source: C-SPAN]The 10 members of the new 9/11 Commission are appointed by this date, and are: Republicans Thomas Kean (chairman), Slade Gorton, James Thompson, Fred Fielding, and John Lehman, and Democrats Lee Hamilton (vice chairman), Max Cleland, Tim Roemer, Richard Ben-Veniste, and Jamie Gorelick. [Chicago Tribune, 12/12/2002; Associated Press, 12/16/2002; New York Times, 12/17/2002] Senators Richard Shelby (R-AL) and John McCain (R-AZ) had a say in the choice of one of the Republican positions. They and many 9/11 victims’ relatives wanted former Senator Warren Rudman (R-NH), who co-wrote an acclaimed report about terrorism before 9/11 (see January 31, 2001). But, possibly under pressure from the White House, Senate Republican leader Trent Lott (R-MS) blocked Rudman’s appointment and chose John Lehman instead. [St. Petersburg Times, 12/12/2002; Associated Press, 12/13/2002; Reuters, 12/16/2002; Shenon, 2008, pp. 55-56] It will slowly emerge over the next several months that at least six of the 10 commissioners have ties to the airline industry. [CBS News, 3/5/2003] Henry Kissinger (see December 13, 2002) and his replacement Thomas Kean (see December 16, 2002) both caused controversy when they were named. In addition, the other nine members of the Commission are later shown to all have potential conflicts of interest. Republican commissioners: Fred Fielding also works for a law firm lobbying for Spirit Airlines and United Airlines. [Associated Press, 2/14/2003; CBS News, 3/5/2003] Slade Gorton has close ties to Boeing, which built all the planes destroyed on 9/11, and his law firm represents several major airlines, including Delta Air Lines. [Associated Press, 12/12/2002; CBS News, 3/5/2003] John Lehman, former secretary of the Navy, has large investments in Ball Corp., which has many US military contracts. [Associated Press, 3/27/2003] James Thompson, former Illinois governor, is the head of a law firm that lobbies for American Airlines and has previously represented United Airlines. [Associated Press, 1/31/2003; CBS News, 3/5/2003] Democratic commissioners: Richard Ben-Veniste represents Boeing and United Airlines. [CBS News, 3/5/2003] He also has other curious connections, according to a 2001 book on CIA ties to drug running written by Daniel Hopsicker, which has an entire chapter called “Who is Richard Ben-Veniste?” Lawyer Ben-Veniste, Hopsicker says, “has made a career of defending political crooks, specializing in cases that involve drugs and politics.” He has been referred to in print as a “Mob lawyer,” and was a long-time lawyer for Barry Seal, one of the most famous drug dealers in US history who is also alleged to have had CIA connections. [Hopsicker, 2001, pp. 325-30] Max Cleland, former US senator, has received $300,000 from the airline industry. [CBS News, 3/5/2003] James Gorelick is a director of United Technologies, one of the Pentagon’s biggest defense contractors and a supplier of engines to airline manufacturers. [Associated Press, 3/27/2003] Lee Hamilton sits on many advisory boards, including those to the CIA, the president’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, and the US Army. [Associated Press, 3/27/2003] Tim Roemer represents Boeing and Lockheed Martin. [CBS News, 3/5/2003]

Joshua Micah Marshall of the influential liberal news blog Talking Points Memo (TPM) writes that charges of “massive voter fraud” that supposedly gave Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) a narrow victory over challenger John Thune (R-SD) are not only spurious, but deliberately “trumped up” by the Republican National Committee (RNC) working with the Thune campaign. Marshall finds the RNC’s allegations of voter fraud being primarily committed on Indian reservations particularly objectionable. The “wild-eyed allegations,” he writes, “were then amplified by a number of local reporters who turned out to be working in embarrassingly close coordination—in one case, cohabiting—with the Republican operatives who ginned up the accusations in the first place.” Marshall calls the allegations a coordinated effort to block Democratic “get out the vote,” or GOTV, efforts, as well as to “stir up politically-helpful racial animosity.” He writes that Thune and the RNC are using advertisements and mailings to accuse Johnson of being personally involved in the purported fraud, and notes that while Thune graciously conceded the election, his campaign operatives fanned out through South Dakota’s reservations collecting affidavits alleging a wide variety of crimes and improprieties. State Attorney General Mark Barnett found the allegations to be entirely groundless (see December 10, 2002). However, the RNC also gave the affidavits to Byron York of the conservative National Review; York is in the process of preparing a lengthy article on the subject (see December 19, 2002). Marshall writes that the only real crimes may have been committed by “RNC operatives caught filing perjurious or forged affidavits to prove their phony case.” [Talking Points Memo, 12/16/2002] In October, Marshall noted that groundless allegations of absentee ballot fraud were made by a local reporter who lived with a lawyer for the Thune campaign. [Talking Points Memo, 10/18/2002]

The Department of Homeland Security sends a team to investigate claims (see November 25, 2002) that there are several tons of uranium sitting in a Benin warehouse awaiting shipment to Iraq. According to a later Senate investigation, they see “only what appear[s] to be bales of cotton in the warehouse.” The agency publishes its finds in a report on February 10, 2003. [US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 59]

President Bush, in a classified briefing with approximately 75 senators, says that Iraq not only has biological and chemical weapons, but is able to strike at the US East Coast via unmanned drone aircraft. For senators still nervous from the recent anthrax attacks, the specter of such an attack is terrifying. Bush provides no evidence of the claim, which is later proven entirely false. [Dean, 2004, pp. 141]

David Brant, the head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), learns of the horrific abuse of a Saudi detainee, Mohamed al-Khatani (sometimes spelled “al-Qahtani”—see February 11, 2008), currently detained at Guantanamo Bay. Al-Khatani is one of several terror suspects dubbed the “missing 20th hijacker”; according to the FBI, al-Khatani was supposed to be on board the hijacked aircraft that crashed in a Pennsylvania field on 9/11 (see (10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Al-Khatani was apprehended in Afghanistan a few months after the terrorist attacks. He is one of the examples of prisoner abuse (see August 8, 2002-January 15, 2003) that Brant takes to Naval General Counsel Alberto Mora (see December 17-18, 2002). In 2006, Brant will say that he believes the Army’s interrogation of al-Khatani was unlawful. If any NCIS agent had engaged in such abuse, he will say, “we would have relieved, removed, and taken internal disciplinary action against the individual—let alone whether outside charges would have been brought.” Brant fears that such extreme methods will taint the cases to be brought against the detainees and undermine any efforts to prosecute them in military or civilian courts. Confessions elicited by such tactics are unreliable. And, Brant will say, “it just ain’t right.” [New Yorker, 2/27/2006]

Analysts with CIA’s WINPAC unit send a paper to the National Security Council noting two omissions in Iraq’s December 7 declaration (see December 7, 2002). The paper, written in response to an order from Undersecretary of State John Bolton, says that Iraq’s declaration failed to explain its procurement of aluminum tubes and “does not acknowledge efforts to procure uranium from Niger, one of the points addressed in British dossier (see September 24, 2002).” [US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 58; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 163]

Newly appointed 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean comes to the White House to meet top officials and discuss the 9/11 investigation. Although a Republican, Kean does not like the “message discipline” of the current White House, where spokesmen keep repeating the same thing over and over. Kean will later tell author Philip Shenon that he is surprised when the officials he meets use the same tactic and keep telling him the same things. Kean thinks the officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and chief of staff Andy Card, are sticking to a pre-agreed script and wonders whether they are reading off the same talking points cards. They keep telling him: “We want you to stand up. You’ve got to stand up,” “You’ve got to have courage,” and “We don’t want a runaway commission.” Kean is baffled by this and thinks it might be some sort of code. He decides they must want him to stand up for the truth and have the courage to follow the evidence wherever it leads. However, Kean will later say: “I decided as the process went on, that’s not what they meant at all.… You’ve got to stand up for the president, and you’ve got to protect him in the process. That’s what they meant.” Card also suggests some names for the key position of executive director of the Commission, but the post goes to somebody else, Philip Zelikow, in the end (see Shortly Before January 27, 2003). [Shenon, 2008, pp. 35-39]

The first time 9/11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean, a Republican, and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, a Democrat noted for his bipartisanship (see 1992-January 1993, Before November 27, 2002 and March 2003-July 2004), meet after their appointment to the commission, Kean offers Hamilton extra powers in the investigation. In effect, Kean and Hamilton would be co-chairmen of the inquiry, rather than chairman and vice chairman. Author Philip Shenon will call this a “remarkable gesture,” as it gives Hamilton an equal say in the hiring and structure of the investigation. Kean also proposes that the two of them should be “joined at the hip,” and that they should always appear in public together, especially on television. Hamilton agrees, thinking this will go some way to make up for their lack of stature in Washington in comparison with the two men they replaced on the commission, Henry Kissinger and George Mitchell. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 68]

Mohammed Jawad, a teenaged Afghan citizen, is captured after allegedly throwing a hand grenade at a US military vehicle in Kabul. The explosion injures two US soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. Jawad insists that he is innocent. After a brief stint in the custody of the Afghan police, where he is tortured into signing a “confession” he cannot read (see November 22, 2008), he will quickly be transferred to Guantanamo, where he will be one of the youngest detainees kept there. [Human Rights First, 9/2008; Salon, 1/21/2009] Jawad’s precise age is unclear. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald will later write, “At the time of his due-process-less imprisonment in Guantanamo, he was an adolescent: between 15 and 17 years old (because he was born and lived his whole life in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, and is functionally illiterate, his exact date of birth is unknown).” [Salon, 1/21/2009]

David Brant, the head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), approaches Naval General Counsel Alberto Mora about the abuse of detainees in US custody at Guantanamo, abuse perhaps authorized at a “high level” in Washington. Brant is in charge of a team of NCIS agents working with the FBI at Guantanamo, called the Criminal Investigative Task Force. The task force’s job is to obtain incriminating information from the detainees for use in future trials or tribunals. Troubling Information - Brant has learned troubling information about the interrogations at Guantanamo (see Early December, 2002). Brant had never discussed anything so sensitive with Mora before, and later recalls, “I wasn’t sure how he would react.” Brant had already discussed the allegations of abuse with Army officials, since they have command authority over the detainees, and to Air Force officials as well, but goes to Mora after deciding that no one in either branch seems to care. He is not hopeful that Mora will feel any differently. Worried about Abuse - Brant goes to Mora because, he will recall, he didn’t want his investigators to “in any way observe, condone, or participate in any level of physical or in-depth psychological abuse. No slapping, deprivation of water, heat, dogs, psychological abuse. It was pretty basic, black and white to me.… I didn’t know or care what the rules were that had been set by the Department of Defense at that point. We were going to do what was morally, ethically, and legally permissible.” Brant had ordered his task force members to “stand clear and report” any abusive tactics that they might witness. Mora 'Rocked' - Brant is not disappointed in Mora’s reactions. A military official who works closely with Brant will later recall that the news “rocked” Mora. The official will add that Mora “was visionary about this,” adding, “He quickly grasped the fact that these techniques in the hands of people with this little training spelled disaster.” Brant asks if Mora wants to hear more about the situation; Mora will write in a 2004 memo (see July 7, 2004), “I responded that I felt I had to.” Second Meeting - Brant meets with Mora the next day, and shows Mora part of the transcript of the [Mohamed al-Khatani] interrogations. Mora is shocked when Brant tells him that the abuse was not “rogue activity,” but apparently sanctioned by the highest levels in the Bush administration. Mora will write in his memo, “I was under the opinion that the interrogation activities described would be unlawful and unworthy of the military services.” Mora will recall in a 2006 interview: “I was appalled by the whole thing. It was clearly abusive, and it was clearly contrary to everything we were ever taught about American values.” Shocked, Mora will learn more from his counterpart in the Army (see December 18, 2002), and determine that the abusive practices need to be terminated. Meeting with Pentagon Lawyer - He will bring his concerns to the Pentagon’s general counsel, William J. Haynes, and will leave that meeting hopeful that Haynes will put an end to the extreme measures being used at Guantanamo (see December 20, 2002). But when Mora returns from Christmas vacation, he will learn that Haynes has done nothing. Mora will continue to argue against the torture of detainees (see Early January, 2003). [New Yorker, 2/27/2006; Vanity Fair, 5/2008]

The UN General Assembly approves the Optional Protocol to the Convention on Torture after 10 years of negotiations. The protocol is adopted with 127 votes in favor, 4 against, and 42 abstentions. The four states that oppose the treaty are the US, Nigeria, the Marshall Islands, and Palau. [Truthout (.org), 6/9/2004] One of the states voting in favor, Israel, later notifies the UN that its vote was cast by mistake because of a “human technical error.” [Ha'aretz, 6/3/2004] The purpose of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on Torture is to strengthen the means of enforcing the Convention’s provisions. Under the new protocol, a system of regular visits to prison facilities will be established. A 10-member subcommittee, funded by the UN, will serve as the executive arm of the existing committee on torture. [Ha'aretz, 6/3/2004]

Naval General Counsel Alberto Mora, concerned about information he has learned about detainee abuse at Guantanamo (see December 17-18, 2002), calls his friend Steven Morello, the Army’s general counsel, and asks if he knows anything about the subject. Morello replies: “I know a lot about it. Come on down.” 'The Package' - In Morello’s office, Mora views what he calls “the package”—a collection of secret military documents that outline the origins of the coercive interrogation policies at Guantanamo. It begins with a request to use more aggressive interrogation tactics at Guantanamo (see October 11, 2002). Weeks later, the new head of the detention facility, Major General Geoffrey Miller, pushes senior Pentagon officials for more leeway in interrogations. On December 2, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave his approval for the use of several more intensive interrogation tactics, including the use of “hooding,” “exploitation of phobias,” “stress positions,” “deprivation of light and auditory stimuli,” and other coercive methods forbidden from use by the Army Field Manual (see December 2, 2002). Rumsfeld does withhold his approval on the use of some methods such as waterboarding. 'Ashen-faced' - Morello tells Mora, “we tried to stop it,” but was told not to ask questions. A participant in the meeting recalls that Mora was “ashen-faced” when he read the package. According to Mora’s memo, Morello, “with a furtive air,” says: “Look at this. Don’t tell anyone where you got it.” Mora later says, “I was astounded that the secretary of defense would get within 100 miles of this issue.” (Morello will later deny showing Mora a copy of the memo.) Mora is similarly unimpressed by another document in the package, a legal analysis by Army lawyer Diane Beaver (see October 11, 2002), which he says will lead to the use of illegal torture by interrogators. 'Force Drift' - Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) psychologist Michael Gelles (see Early December, 2002) joins the meeting, and tells Mora that the Guantanamo interrogators are under intense pressure to achieve results. He tells Mora about the phenomenon of “force drift,” where interrogators using coercion begin to believe that if some force achieves results, then more force achieves better results. Mora determines to take action to bring the abuse to a close (see December 20, 2002). [New Yorker, 2/27/2006; Vanity Fair, 5/2008]

The Bush administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) tells the EPA to use the discounted value of 63 percent for health impacts on senior citizens in calculating cost-benefit analyses when conducting assessments for new air pollution restrictions on polluting industries. [Knight Ridder, 12/19/2002]

Dr. August Hanning. [Source: Der Spiegel]CIA Director George Tenet makes an urgent request to the chief of German intelligence, Dr. August Hanning. Tenet is scheduled to meet with President Bush in three days to discuss the case for invading Iraq. Tenet wants to cement his case by allowing the Iraqi defector known as “Curveball” to appear on television and tell his story; failing that, Tenet wants the Germans to allow an American expert to debrief Curveball (later revealed as a fabricator named Rafid Ahmed Alwan—see November 4, 2007) and then himself appear on television with his findings. Two days later, Hanning rejects Tenet’s requests. Hanning calls Curveball’s information “plausible and believable,” but adds that “attempts to verify the information have been unsuccessful.” Therefore, all of Curveball’s reports “must be considered unconfirmed.” However, Hanning would allow Curveball’s information to be used, if Tenet still desired to use that unconfirmed information, if the source is protected. In November 2007, Tenet denies ever seeing Hanning’s letter. The CIA’s former European division chief, Tyler Drumheller, believes Tenet is lying. “He needs to talk to his special assistants if he didn’t see it. And the fact is, he had very good special assistants. I’m sure they showed it to him. And I’m sure it was just, it wasn’t what they wanted to see,” Drumheller says. [CBS News, 11/4/2007]

Ghassan Elashi holds a press conference and denies any connection to terrorist funding. [Source: Associated Press]Mousa Abu Marzouk, his wife, and five brothers (Ghassan Elashi, Bayan Elashi, Hazim Elashi, Basman Elashi, and Ihsan Elashi) are charged with conspiracy, money laundering, dealing in the property of a designated terrorist, illegal export, and making false statements. The brothers are arrested in Texas, but Marzouk and his wife are living in Syria and remain free. Marzouk is considered a top leader of Hamas. FBI agent Robert Wright had been investigating Marzouk and the brothers since the late 1990s. Wright is set to appear on ABC News on December 19, 2002, to complain that the FBI had failed to prosecute Marzouk for years. As the New York Post notes, “That got results: A day before the show aired, Attorney General Ashcroft announced he would indict Marzouk.” [BBC, 12/18/2002; Associated Press, 12/18/2002; Washington Post, 12/19/2002; New York Post, 7/14/2004] FBI agent John Vincent, who worked closely with Wright, comments, “From within the FBI, [Wright] and I tried to get the FBI to use existing criminal laws to attack the infrastructure of terrorist organizations within the United States, but to no avail. It took an appearance [on television] by [Wright] and I to propel them into making arrests that they could have made as early as 1993.” [Federal News Service, 6/2/2003] ABC News similarly notes, “Marzouk was in US custody in 1997 and under criminal investigation then for much the same crimes cited today.” [ABC News, 12/18/2002] Ghassan Elashi was the vice president of InfoCom Corporation, which was raided on September 5, 2001 (see September 5-8, 2001). He was also chairman of Holy Land Foundation, which was shut down in December 2001. InfoCom and Holy Land were based in the same Texas office park and shared many of the same employees. [Guardian, 9/10/2001; CBS News, 12/18/2002; Associated Press, 12/23/2002] Holy Land raised $13 million in 2000 and claimed to be the largest Muslim charity in the US. The government charges that Hamas members met with Ghassan Elsashi and other Holy Land officials in 1993 to discuss raising money for the families of suicide bombers (see October 1993). Wright had begun an investigation into Holy Land that same year, but he faced obstacles from higher-ups and eventually his investigation was shut down. [CBS News, 12/18/2002; New York Times, 7/28/2004] In 2004, the five Elashi brothers will be convicted of selling computer equipment overseas in violation of anti-terrorism laws. In 2005, three of the brothers, Ghassan, Basman, and Bayan Elashi, will be found guilty of supporting Hamas by giving money to Mazouk through 2001. [BBC, 7/8/2004; Associated Press, 4/13/2005] In July 2004, Ghassan Elashi will be charged again, along with four other former Holy Land officials. Two other Holy Land officials will also charged but not arrested, since they had recently left the country. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) will state: “I wonder why this prosecution has taken so long. I think until recently we have not put the resources needed into tracking groups that finance terrorism, and the fact that they didn’t get 24-hour surveillance on these two who escaped is galling and perplexing.” [New York Times, 7/28/2004] In 2007, this court case will result in a mistrial, and be cast as a major setback for the Justice Department (see October 19, 2007).

Secretary of State Colin Powell and US ambassador to the UN John Negroponte say that the Bush administration considers Iraq to be in “material breach” of UN Resolution 1441 (see November 8, 2002), citing deliberate omissions and falsehoods in Iraq’s 12,000 page December 7 declaration (see December 7, 2002). Powell calls the declaration “a catalog of recycled information and flagrant omissions,” adding that it “totally fails to meet the resolution’s requirements.” He says the omissions “constitute another material breach.” [Associated Press, 12/19/2002; Associated Press, 12/19/2002; Irish Times, 12/19/2002; Washington Post, 12/19/2002] But the administration’s conclusion is made before the Arabic sections of the declaration have even been translated. Blix says that there are 500 or 600 pages that still need to be translated and that it is too early to provide a complete assessment. He adds that the Bush administration’s statements about a “material breach” are baseless allegations. [CNN, 12/19/2002; Straits Times, 12/20/2002]

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